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A    SURGEON    IN    KHAKI 


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TlIK    AUI'IIOK    OUrSIDK    AMUUI.ANCI';    HKAlXniAKTEKS    AT    OUDIiKDOM. 


SURGEON  IN  KHAKI 


BY 

ARTHUR    ANDERSON     MARTIN 

M.D.,  Ch.B.,  F.R.C.S.Ed. 

SENIOR   SURGEON,    PALMERSTON   NORTH    HOSPITAL,    NEW   ZEALAND 

LATE   FIELD   AMBULANCE,    5TH    DIVISION,    SND   AKMV 

LATE    SURGICAL   SPECIALIST,    NO.    6   GENERAL    HOSPITAL,    ROUEN,    FRANCE 

BRITISH    EXPEDITIONARY    FORCE 

LATE   CIVIL   SURGEON,    SOUTH    AFRICAN    FIELD    FORCE,    190I 


WITH    ILLUSTRATIONS 


FOURTH   IMPRESSION 


LONDON 
EDWARD     ARNOLD 
1916 

\_All  rights  reserved'] 


PREFACE. 


In  the  following  pages  an  attempt  is  made  to  record, 
however  imperfectly,  some  of  the  scenes,  and  the  im- 
pressions formed,  during  those  great  days  of  1914 
when  our  army  was  fighting  so  stubbornly  and  against 
such  odds  in  France  and  Flanders. 

The  notes  in  many  instances  are  disconnected,  but 
the  things  seen  presented  themselves  in  a  disconnected 
way,  and  if  they  are  not  all  beautifully  dovetailed  one 
into  another,  they  are  at  least  given  forth  somewhat  in 
the  way  in  which  I  viewed  and  received  them  myself. 

During  the  actual  progress  of  this  war,  and  when 
the  war  is  happily  over,  much  literature  bearing  on 
the  great  struggle  will  be  produced,  but  I  venture  to 
think  that  of  the  personal  narrative  and  the  personal 
impression  one  cannot  have  too  much. 

The  narrative  includes  my  experiences  at  Le  Havre, 
Harfleur,  and  the  battle  of  the  Marne,  the  march  to  the 
Aisne,  the  wait  on  the  Aisne,  the  move  across  France 
to  the  new  lines  behind  La  Bassee,  and  the  final  move 
to  Flanders  not  far  from  Ypres. 

ARTHUR  A.  MARTIN. 


CONTENTS 


CHAP.  FAaft 

I.  From  Peace  to  War  .....        1 

II.  Le  Havre  and  Harpleur   .  .  .  .  .15 

III.  From  Lk  Havre  to  the  Bay  of  Biscay  .  .25 

IV.  From  the  Bay  of  Biscay  to  East  of  Paris       .  .      35 
V.  The  Advance  to  the  Marne         .           .           .           .44 

VI.  What  I  saw  of  the  Battle  of  the  Marne       .  .      53 

VII.  The  Night  of  the  Marne  .  .  .  .  .59 

VIII.  From  the  Marne  to  the  Aisnk     .  .  .  .65 

IX.  The  Aisne  and  the  Tragedy  of  the  Sunken  Road     .      84 

X.  Missy  on  the  Aisne  .  .  .  .  .90 

XI.  On  the  Aisne  at  Mont  de  Soissons        .  .  .     103 

XII.  Field  Ambulances  and  Military  Hospitals       .  .    124 

XIII.  Good-bye  to  the  Aisne       .....    141 

XIV.  The  La  Bassee  Road  at  Chateau  Gorre  .  .    164 
XV.  Bethune         .......    171 

XVI.  Some  Medical  Odds  and  Ends       ....    202 

XVII.  We  leave  Bethune  .  .  .  .  .  .221 

XVIII.  Over  the  Belgian  Frontier  .  .  .  .231 

XIX.  We  leave  Belgium  ......    265 

b  Tii 


LIST    OF    ILLUSTRATIONS 


The  Author  outside  Ambulance  Headquarters  at  Ouderdom 

Frontis'piece 


PACING  PAGB 

18 


A  Koad  Obstruction  near  Harfleur 

Harfleur — Our  Sleeping  Quarters          .  ,  .  .18 

Transport  Cestrian  in  the  Bay  of  Biscay  .  .  .32 

The  Gestrian  at  St.  Nazaire        .            .  .  .  .32 

Ambulances  at  the  Marne  ,           .           .  .  .  .54 

Halt  at  Serches        .......      84 

Gun  Teams  at  the  Marne    .           .           .  .  .  .88 

The  Way  to  the  Sunken  Road       .           .  .  .  .88 

Mont  de  Soissons,  showing   the    Old   Templars'   Hall  and 

Church  ........    104 


Loading  Wounded  at  Soissons.    The  First  Motor  Ambulance 

ON   THE  AlSNE     ...... 

The  Lean-to  at  Soissons.    Unloading  Wounded 
ChIteau  of  Lonqpont  ..... 

Village  of  Longpont  ..... 

On  the  Road  to  Compieqne  .... 

COMPIEGNE,   showing   THE  BROKEN   BRIDGE   . 

Ambulance  crossing  the  Oise  on  a  Pontoon  Bridge    . 


122 
122 
142 
142 
148 
156 
156 


X  LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 

Low  Flat  Ground  near  the  Canal,  with  a  Trench 

Towards  La  Bassee   ..... 

Slightly  Wounded  and  Sick  at  Bethune 

EcoLB  Jules  Ferry  at  Bethune 

Trenches  in  Flanders  .... 

MONSIGNOR   distributing    MeDALS    TO   BELGIAN   SOLDIERS   AT   THE 

Roadside  ..... 

Going  towards  the  Trenches  at  Ypres    . 
French  Soldiers  going  to  the  Trenches. 


TACING  l-AOB 

168 


168 
176 
176 
198 

252 
268 
268 


A   SURGEON    IN    KHAKI. 


CHAPTER   I. 

FROM  PEACE  TO  WAR. 

Earlt  1914. 

In  April  1914  I  left  my  practice  in  New  Zealand  for  a 
short  tour  through  the  American,  British,  and  Conti- 
nental surgical  clinics. 

After  having  visited  all  the  important  clinics  in 
the  United  States — the  famous  Mayos  of  Rochester, 
Murphy's  at  Chicago,  Cushing's  at  Boston,  and  others 
at  Cleveland,  Baltimore,  and  Philadelphia,  I  finally 
arrived  at  New  York. 

When  visiting  the  clinic  at  the  German  hospital  at 
Philadelphia,  I,  with  other  visiting  surgeons,  principally 
Ajnericans  or  German-Americans,  was  invited  to  tea 
and  cake,  or  cake  and  beer,  in  the  reception-room  of 
the  hospital. 

As  the  day  was  very  hot  we  all  drank  iced  German 
lager  beer,  and,  when  leaving  the  room,  were  presented 
with  a  gilt  "  wish-bones  "  holding  ribbons  of  the  German 
national  colours. 

All  of  the  American  and  German- American  doctors 


2  A  SURGEON  IN  KHAKI 

wore  the  ribbons  on  their  coats,  but  I  put  mine  in  my 
pocket  as  a  curio.  I  did  not  wish  to  be  thought  to 
have  German  sympathies,  although  I  had  drunk  their 
lager  beer.  In  New  Zealand  the  Germans  have  never 
been  appreciated  as  they  have  been  in  England.  Per- 
haps the  air  of  the  Pacific  gives  one  a  truer  perspective 
of  some  things  as  they  are. 

At  New  York  I  delayed  sailing  two  days,  in  order  to 
avoid  a  German  boat,  and  reached  England  by  the 
Holland- American  boat  Rotterdam  in  July.  We  had  on 
board  the  Rotterdam  a  very  large  number  of  Germans, 
and  as  usual  they  were  chiefly  noticeable  for  their  great 
prowess  at  meals,  and  for  their  noisy  method  of  eating. 
They  drank  much  "  good  German  beer  ''  and  filled  the 
rooms  with  German  smoke  and  German  gutturals. 
They  are  not  attractive  fellow-travellers. 

On  arriving  in  England  I  proceeded  to  Aberdeen, 
where  the  annual  meeting  of  the  British  Medical 
Association  was  being  held,  and  to  which  I  was  a 
delegate. 

At  Aberdeen  we  had  a  very  large  number  of  foreign 
representative  surgeons  and  physicians  and  men  from 
nearly  every  part  of  the  world.  As  usual  there  were 
many  Germans  and  a  few  Austrians. 

We  were  struck  by  a  very  curious  incident  towards 
the  end  of  the  meeting — last  day  of  July.  The  presi- 
dent of  the  Association,  Sir  Alexander  Ogston,  gave  a 
reception  to  all  the  delegates  from  the  British  kindred 
and  affiliated  associations,  and  to  the  foreign  represen- 
tatives.    Although  the  German  and  Austrian  delegates 


FROM  PEACE  TO  WAR  3 

had  been  about  in  the  morning,  not  one  was  present 
at  the  evening  reception.  They  had  all  departed 
silently,  and  had  said  good-bye  to  no  one. 

Germany  and  Austria  had  sent  out  their  messages, 
and  the  medicals  returned  with  all  speed. 

We  were  then  on  the  eve  of  war,  but  none  of  us  at 
Aberdeen  thought  that  we  would  be  in  it,  or  that  we 
were  then  rushing  swiftly  to  great  events. 

The  Austrian  note  to  Serbia  was  being  discussed. 
Germany's  action  was  doubtful.  Russia  plainly  said 
that  she  would  not  stand  by  and  tamely  see  Serbian 
Slavs  humiliated  by  their  powerful  neighbours.  In 
spite  of  the  cloudiness  of  the  political  atmosphere  and 
the  slight  oppressiveness  none  really  expected  lightning 
and  thunder,  or  that  any  spirit  would 

In  these  confines  with  a  monarch's  voice 
Cry  Havoc  !    and  let  slip  the  dogs  of  war. 

On  the  3rd  August  Sir  Edward  Grey,  in  the 
House  of  Commons,  in  a  serious  speech,  reviewed  the 
European  situation.  With  convincing  eloquence  he 
showed  how  anxiously  he  had  striven  to  maintain 
peace,  and  exactly  defined  England's  attitude  in  certain 
possible  contingencies. 

The  excitement  all  over  the  country  was  tremendous. 
The  air  was  electrical  with  coming  events,  a  spark  would 
set  the  firmament  ablaze.  One  could  almost  see  the 
peoples  of  Russia,  Germany,  Austria,  France,  Belgium 
and  Serbia  gaze  questioningly,  anxiously,  across  the 
Channel  at  the  Island  Kingdom,  and  wondering  in  that 
tense  moment,  What  would  England  do  ? 


4  A  SURGEON  IN  KHAKI 

Then  flaring  headlines  in  the  press  told  that  Liege, 
the  great  eastern  fortress  and  arsenal  of  Belgium,  had 
been  furiously  bombarded  by  the  German  artillery, 
and  that  Bethmann-Hollweg,  the  German  Chancellor, 
had  declared  that  a  solemn  treaty  guaranteeing  the 
neutrality  of  Belgium  was  of  no  more  value  than  a  scrap 
of  paper. 

Then  England  declared  war  against  Germany,  and 
on  the  4th  of  August  we  knew  that  England  was  to  take 
her  place  in  the  titanic  world-war  and  step  into  the  all- 
engulfing  struggle. 

So  here  it  was  at  last.  War  with  Germany  !  The 
restrained  hostility  of  years  was  now  no  longer  concealed, 
the  long-pent-up  passions  were  now  let  loose.  Men 
seemed  to  breathe  easier,  and  an  air  of  relief  pervaded 
the  country. 

England  was  like  a  sick  man  after  a  consultation 
with  the  surgeons.  He  looks  eagerly  and  anxiously 
at  the  surgeons,  hoping  that  no  operation  may  be 
necessary,  but  dreading  and  expecting  that  it  may. 
Once  told  by  them  that  an  operation  is  necessary 
in  order  that  he  may  live,  his  doubts  and  hesitation 
disappear,  and  he  agrees  to  submit  and  to  undergo  the 
drastic  measures  and  emerge  a  strong  and  whole  man. 
There  is  a  relief  that  he  has  decided  and  the  mind 
becomes  tranquil. 

The  gravity  of  the  issue  was  realised  in  England 
in  those  early  August  days.  Those  entitled  to  speak 
with  authority  pronounced  that  the  war  would  be  a  big 
war — ^the  greatest  since  the  beginning  of  time — and 


FROM  PEACE  TO  WAR  5 

that  the  men  and  women  of  our  day  and  generation 
would  have  to  pass  through  sorrow  and  tribulation 
and  wade  through  dark  and  troubled  waters  before  the 
end  would  be  finally  achieved. 

The  justness  of  England's  quarrel  was  everjrvvhere 
acknowledged,  except  in  the  land  of  the  enemy,  and  the 
exposure  of  the  tortuous  and  insidious  German  diplomacy 
stirred  up  the  English  sense  of  straight  dealing  and 
fairplay. 

On  6th  August  I  motored  down  from  the  Highlands 
to  Edinburgh,  through  the  Pass  of  Killiecrankie  and  some 
of  the  loveliest  scenery  in  Scotland. 

Everywhere  were  signs  of  mobilisation.  Khaki 
soldiers  and  "  mufti  "  recruits  at  every  depot  and  around 
recruiting  sergeants.  The  price  of  petrol  had  suddenly 
risen — why,  nobody  quite  knew,  but  somebody  was 
making  money  out  of  it,  we  were  sure.  At  one  town 
I  paid  ten  shillings  for  a  two-gallon  tin. 

In  the  evening  I  reached  Queensferry,  but  was  not 
allowed  to  cross  at  that  hour.  As  the  ferry  would  not 
be  going  again  till  next  morning  I  motored  back  to 
Dunfermline,  and  having  stopped  the  night  there,  re- 
turned early  in  the  morning  to  the  Ferry.  This  time  I 
got  across  with  my  car.  The  Firth  of  Forth  presented 
a  very  busy  scene  that  morning.  Torpedo  boats  and 
naval  craft  of  all  sorts  and  sizes  were  dashing  about, 
and  in  the  distance  were  the  large  dark  outlines  of  big 
ships  of  war. 

From  Queensferry  a  rapid  run  brought  me  to  Edin- 
burgh, where  the  whole  talk  in  hotel  smoking-rooms,  at 


6  A  SURGEON  IN  KHAKI 

table,  and  on  the  street,  was  of  war.  The  kilted  soldier 
was  looked  at  with  more  interest  as  he  walked  the  streets, 
and  appeals  were  placarded  on  every  prominent  place 
for  new  recruits. 

The  morning  papers  announced  that  the  House  of 
Commons  had  passed  a  war  vote  of  one  hundred  million 
pounds,  and  that  Kitchener  had  asked  for  five  hundred 
thousand  men  to  join  the  army. 

The  Cabinet,  like  a  good  physician,  was  giving  the 
nation  its  medicine  in  small  doses  during  these  early  days. 
Doctors  will  tell  you  that  small  doses  frequently  repeated 
are  so  much  better  than  a  big  dose  taken  at  one  wry 
mouthful,  for  a  big  heroic  dose  taken  at  one  gulp  often 
causes  nausea.  The  hundred  million  pounds  and  the 
five  hundred  thousand  men  made  the  first  teaspoonful 
of  the  national  physic  which  was  to  help  get  rid  of 
the  fatty  degeneration  and  change  our  sleeping,  sluggish 
strength  into  the  crouch  and  spring  and  hit  of  the  prize 
fighter. 

Next  day  I  took  train  for  London  in  order  to  offer 
my  medical  service  to  the  War  Office.  There  was  an 
urgent  demand  for  surgeons  to  volunteer  for  active 
service,  and  at  this  particular  juncture  good  surgeons 
who  were  free  to  go  were  not  very  plentiful.  As  I 
was  on  a  tour  of  surgical  clinics  at  this  time  I  decided  to 
do  my  bit  for  the  country  and  the  men  in  the  field. 
Having  nothing  to  do  when  I  reached  London  that 
evening,  I  strolled  into  a  music  hall  and  heard  "  God 
Save  the  King,''  "  Rule,  Britannia,''  the  "  Marseillaise," 
the  Russian,  Belgian,  and  Serbian  national  hymns — all 


FROM  PEACE  TO  WAR  7 

blared  out  to  cheering  and  shouting  crowds,  who  seemed 
to  thoroughly  enjoy  "  being  at  war/'  It  was  reminiscent 
of  the  days  of  the  Boer  War  in  1899 : 

"'Alea  jacta  est' — The  die  is  cast." 

Early  next  day  I  visited  the  Medical  Department  of 
the  War  Ofl&ce  at  Whitehall,  and  volunteered  as  a 
surgeon  with  the  Expeditionary  Army  to  France.  Two 
days  afterwards  the  War  Office  sent  me  a  note  requesting 
me  to  call  at  the  office  and  be  examined  to  see  if  I  was 
physically  fit.  So  I  did.  The  physical  examination  was 
carried  out  with  amazing  celerity,  and  I  was  handed  on 
as  "  fit."  The  genial  old  army  doctor  appointed  for 
this  duty  of  examining  his  younger  colleagues  made 
his  diagnosis  on  sight  almost,  and  toyed  easily  with  his 
stethoscope  while  he  inquired  about  the  state  of  the 
teeth  and  the  digestion. 

I  was  then  ushered  into  another  office  and  was  duly 
appointed  a  Temporary  Lieutenant  in  the  Royal  Army 
Medical  Corps. 

All  the  civilian  surgeons  accepted  for  service  with  the 
army — with  the  exception  of  a  few  consulting  surgeons 
— were  given  the  rank  of  Temporary  Lieutenant. 
Seniority  or  special  skill  or  previous  war  experience 
mattered  nothing.  I  had  already  served  as  a  Civil 
Surgeon,  attached  to  the  Royal  Army  Medical  Corps 
during  the  South  African  War,  and  had  a  medal  and  four 
clasps  from  that  campaign,  and  since  that  period  had 
been  surgeon  to  an  important  hospital  in  New  Zealand, 
and  was  a  retired  Captain  in  the  New  Zealand  Medical 


8  A  SURGEON  IN  KHAKI 

Corps.  That,  however,  did  not  entitle  me  to  hold  any- 
higher  rank  than  the  young  medical  man  who  had  com- 
pleted his  medical  training  only  a  week  ago.  Many 
able  medical  men  all  over  the  country  had  voluntarily 
left  lucrative  practices  and  important  surgical  and 
medical  staff  appointments  in  big  London  and  provincial 
hospitals  and  were  enrolled  as  Lieutenants  in  the  Royal 
Army  Medical  Corps,  on  the  same  footing  as  junior 
medical  men  who  had  perhaps  been  their  pupils  but  a 
few  weeks  before.  We  all  ranked  below  the  regular 
officers  of  the  Royal  Army  Medical  Corps.  Volunteers 
for  combatant  commissions  who  had  had  previous 
experience  were  given  rank  accordingly.  Some  dis- 
crimination was  made  in  the  combatant  arm,  and  rightly 
so.  No  discrimination  was  made  in  the  medical  service, 
and  undoubtedly  that  was  a  mistake.  The  same  lack 
of  organised  control  was  exhibited  at  every  turn  in  the 
medical  service.  Men  with  imperfect  professional  skill 
and  experience  were  given  duties  which  should  have  been 
entrusted  only  to  men  fully  possessed  of  those  qualifica- 
tions. This  criticism  is  not  merely  a  destructive  one. 
Criticism  is  absolutely  necessary  at  certain  times,  and 
there  are  some  mistakes  in  policy  which  should  be  freely 
ventilated.  This  same  policy  was  pursued  by  the  Army 
Medical  Department  during  the  South  African  War, 
and  was  very  openly  discussed.  This  led  to  drastic 
changes  in  the  organisation  of  the  Royal  Army  Medical 
Corps,  following  on  the  Commission  of  Inquiry  set  up 
by  Mr.  Brodrick  (now  Lord  Midleton).  In  this  war, 
I  regret  to  say,  the  old  leaven  has  again  appeared, 


FROM  PEACE  TO  WAR  9 

and  its  re-appearance  has  aroused  considerable  com- 
ment and  been  a  cause  of  inefficiency. 

After  having  been  given  my  commission  I  was  told 
to  procure  a  uniform — Sam  Browne  belt,  a  revolver, 
blanlcets,  and  other  campaigning  kit — and  to  be  prepared 
to  move  in  forty-eight  hours.  With  great  difficulty  I 
managed  to  get  some  sort  of  equipment  together.  The 
military  tailors  were  working  at  high  pressure,  and  when 
asked  to  make  a  coat  or  breeches  in  a  certain  time 
simply  said,  "  It  can't  be  done."  By  skilful  diplomacy 
I  got  a  coat  in  one  place,  a  pair  of  riding  breeches  in 
another,  puttees  at  another,  leggings  elsewhere,  and  so 
on.  One  could  not  then  obtain  khaki  shirts  or  ties  in 
London.  I  did  not  get  a  revolver,  although  this  was 
on  the  list  of  things  necessary.  Neither  did  I  purchase 
a  sword.  Why  a  medical  officer  should  be  asked  to 
carry  a  sword  and  a  revolver,  and  at  the  same  time 
wear  a  Red  Cross  brassard  on  the  left  arm,  I  am  at  a  loss 
to  understand.  I  have  asked  many  senior  medical 
officers  of  what  use  a  revolver  and  sword  were  to  a  doctor 
on  active  service,  and  the  only  reply  I  could  get  was  that 
they  were  useful  to  defend  the  wounded.  It  would  have 
been  much  more  sensible  for  the  War  Office  to  tell  each 
medical  officer  to  get  several  pairs  of  rubber  gloves  for 
dressings  and  operations.  I  sometimes  wondered  if  the 
War  Office  expected  the  surgeons  to  perform  amputa- 
tions with  a  sword.  However,  I  did  not  get  a  revolver, 
and  I  did  not  get  a  sword.  Later  on,  in  France,  I  have 
seen  mild-looking  young  surgeons  arrive  at  the  front 
armed  to  the  teeth,  with  swords,  revolvers  and  ammuni- 


10  A  SURGEON  IN  KHAKI 

tion,  clanking  spurs,  map  cases,  field-glasses  and  com- 
passes strung  all  round  them,  and  on  their  left  arm  the 
brassard  with  the  Red  Cross.  We  called  them  *'  Christ- 
mas trees." 

At  last  my  equipment  was  complete,  and  I 
received  orders  to  go  to  Aldershot  and  report  to  the 
Assistant  Director  of  Medical  Services  for  duty. 

I  was  now  a  "  Surgeon  in  Khaki ""  and  part  of  that 
great  military  hammer — ^the  British  Expeditionary 
Force. 

When  I  arrived  at  Aldershot  the  town  seemed 
deserted.  The  majority  of  the  big  barracks  were  empty. 
We  were  told  that  the  British  Army  had  just  left  for  the 
Continent,  and  that  the  Aldershot  command,  under 
General  Haig,  had  gone  to  a  man.  Aldershot  was  rapidly 
preparing  to  receive  and  train  recruits,  mobilise  rein- 
forcements, and  keep  up  a  steady  flow  of  men  to  replace 
casualties.  This  was  great  news.  When  we  left  London 
we  did  not  know  that  the  British  Expeditionary  Army 
had  gone. 

The  A.D.M.S.  (Assistant  Director  of  Medical  Services) 
put  me  on  duty  at  the  Cambridge  Military  Hospital  at 
Aldershot,  while  awaiting  orders  for  the  front.  Several 
surgeons  awaiting  orders  were  already  here,  and  we  all 
billeted  at  the  Victoria  Hotel.  We  were  soon  at  work 
examining  and  passing  recruits,  inoculating  troops 
against  typhoid,  and  vaccinating  all  who  had  no  con- 
scientious objections.  Some  had  "  conscientious  " 
objections    to    inoculation.      Soldiers    should    not   be 


FROM  PEACE  TO  WAR  11 

allowed  liberty  of  conscience  in  these  matters.  They 
should  be  made  immune  against  typhoid  and  smallpox 
at  "  the  word  of  command  "  in  spite  of  the  screechings 
of  fanatics  suffering  from  distorted  cerebration. 

Our  duty  at  the  recruiting  depots  was  a  very  amus- 
ing one.  We  here  came  in  contact  with  the  first 
hopefuls  of  Kitchener's  new  army.  The  first  call  to 
arms  generally  brings  in  a  very  motley  crowd.  The 
best  of  the  recruits  do  not  turn  up  during  the  first  few 
days,  as  these  have  generally  some  domestic  or  business 
matters  to  arrange.  It  was  the  "  First  Footers  "  we  got 
in  these  days  at  Aldershot. 

Another  medical  officer  and  myself  took  over  one 
depot.  We  arrived  at  8.30  a.m.  Standing  in  a  strag- 
gling two-deep  line  before  the  depot  door  were  about 
three  hundred  men  of  the  most  variegated  texture — 
some  lean,  some  fat,  some  smart,  some  unkempt,  but 
all  looking  very  cheerful  and  hopeful.  A  smart  R.A.M.C. 
sergeant  is  waiting  at  the  door  with  a  list  of  their  names. 
It  is  our  duty  to  examine  physically  this  first  batch  of 
three  hundred,  to  see  if  they  are  fit  enough  to  train  to 
fight  Germans.  Ten  men  are  marched  into  the  depot. 
Each  doctor  takes  five  at  a  time.  At  the  word  of 
command  they  strip  and  the  doctor  begins.  He  casts 
a  professional  eye  rapidly  over  the  nude  recruit.  A 
general  look  like  this  to  a  trained  eye  conveys  a  lot. 
The  chest  is  examined,  tongue,  mouth,  and  teeth  looked 
at.  The  usual  sites  for  rupture  are  examined.  About 
three  questions  are  asked  :  "  Any  previous  illness  ?  '" 
"  Age  ?  "  "  Previous  occupation  1"    A  mark  is  placed 


12  A  SURGEON  IN  KHAKI 

against  the  name,  the  nude  Briton  is  told  to  clothe 
himself,  and  the  examination  is  over.  It  is  done  at 
express  speed,  and  although  the  examination  is  not 
very  thorough  it  is  sufficient  to  enable  an  experienced 
man  to  detect  most  physical  defects.  If  a  man  passed, 
he  was  put  down  for  foreign  service.  Some  had  slight 
defects  and  were  put  down  for  home  defence.  Some 
had  glaring  defects  and  were  turned  down  altogether. 
We  had  all  sorts  of  derelicts  turn  up.  One  weary-looking 
veteran,  unwashed  and  with  straw  sticking  in  his  hair, 
indicative  of  a  bed  in  a  haystack  the  previous  night, 
was  blind  in  one  eye  and  very  lame.  A  draper's 
assistant  from  a  London  shop  had  a  twisted  spine,  an 
old  soldier  had  syphilitic  ulcers  on  the  legs,  some  had 
bad  hearts  from  excessive  smoking,  some  bad  Iddneys 
from  excessive  drinking,  some  young  men  were  really 
sexagenarians  from  hard  living,  and  so  on.  They  were 
old  men  before  their  time.  The  occupations  of  our 
recruits  were  as  diverse  as  their  shapes  and  constitutions 
— a  runaway  sailor,  a  Cockney  coster,  a  draper's  assist- 
ant, a  sea  cook,  a  medical  student,  a  broken-down  parson, 
an  obvious  gaolbird,  and  a  Sunday-school  teacher. 

"  Cook's  son,  duke's  son,  son  of  a  belted  earl, 
Son  of  a  Lambeth  publican,  they're  all  the  same  to-day." 

Before  the  doctor  the  son  of  a  prize  fighter  makes 
a  better  showing  than  the  son  of  a  consumptive  bishop. 
We  had  orders  not  to  be  too  strict  with  our  physical 
examination.  We  were  not  to  turn  a  man  down  if  he 
could  be  usefully  employed  in  any  State  service  during 
the  war.     For  instance,  many  of  the  '*  weeds  "  amongst 


FROM  PEACE  TO  WAR  13 

the  young  men,  the  cigarette  victims,  the  pasty-faced, 
flat-chested  youths,  those  who  had  lived  down  dark 
alleys  and  in  unhygienic  surroundings  all  their  lives, 
were  all  capable  of  being  made  into  better  men.  Regular 
meals,  plain  food,  good  quarters,  baths,  cleanliness 
and  hard  work,  marching,  drilling  and  gymnastics, 
made  these  slouching,  dull-eyed  youths  into  active, 
smart  men.  They  then  held  their  heads  up,  breathed 
the  free  air,  lost  their  sullenness,  and  became  cheerful. 
Some  of  the  recruits  were  not  fit  to  be  made  into  soldiers, 
and  work  could  always  be  found  for  them.  There  are 
so  many  openings  for  the  willing  man  at  this  time,  be  it 
cook's  assistant,  mess  servant,  officer's  servant,  orderly, 
or  bootmaker's  help. 

It  was  always  an  interesting  sight  to  see  the  sergeant 
and  corporal  drill  these  clumsy  recruits,  and  show 
them  how  to  walk,  and  where  to  place  their  feet.  The 
army  drill  sergeant  has  a  very  caustic  wit  and  a 
wonderful  fund  of  cutting  comments.  He  knows  his 
audience  well,  and  with  a  few  crisp  epithets  can  galvanise 
a  sluggish  recruit  or  a  slouching  company  into  some- 
thing instinct  with  alertness. 

On  21st  August,  six  surgeons,  including  myself, 
were  ordered  to  hold  ourselves  in  readiness  for  service 
abroad.  We  were  told  to  overhaul  our  kits  thoroughly, 
think  out  all  necessary  things,  and  not  to  have  any 
excessive  baggage.  None  of  us  had.  The  Wolseley 
valise  held  our  little  all. 

The  last  good-byes  were  said,  and  at  4  p.m.  we 
entrained  at  Aldershot  for  our  journey  to  "  somewhere 


14  A  SURGEON  IN  KHAKI 

in  France/'  We  were  all  very  glad  to  be  off.  We 
were  all  very  curious  to  see  and  take  part  in  the  romance 
and  adventures  of  the  great  battles  that  we  knew 
would  be  sure  to  take  place. 

Romance !  Adventure  !  Very  soon  we  were  up 
against  cold  facts,  and  there  was  no  romance  or  pomp 
and  circumstance  then. 


CHAPTER   II. 
LE  HAVRE  AND  HARFLEUR. 

At  12  p.m.  we  detrained  at  Southampton,  hungry  and 
thirsty.  Owing  to  lack  of  foresight  we  had  had  nothing 
to  eat  since  breakfast.  The  night  was  a  beautiful  one, 
and  a  voyage  across  channel  sounded  very  inviting. 
We  marched  our  350  R.A.M.C.  orderlies  on  to  our  trans- 
port, the  Braemar  Castle,  and  the  officers  tried  to  find  a 
place  to  sleep.  We  managed  to  get  some  corners  in 
the  smoking-room,  and  curled  up  as  best  we  could  in  the 
cramped  places.  The  ship  was  packed  full  of  troops, 
and  we  learned  that  we  were  the  first  reinforcements  for 
the  Expeditionary  Army.  We  had  two  generals  on 
board  and  the  headquarter  staff  of  a  new  division.  Our 
destination  was  to  be  Le  Havre.  At  2  a.m.  we  steamed 
out,  followed  by  several  other  transports  crowded  with 
soldiers.  Torpedo-boat  destroyers  kept  watchful  eyes 
on  us  across  channel,  and  twice  a  huge  searchlight 
played  all  round  us  from  far  out  at  sea.  The  navy 
was  watching  on  the  deep  waters.  The  soldiers  on 
board  slept  on  the  deck,  on  hatches,  anywhere,  and 
they  were  all  up  and  cheerfully  carolling  at  dawn.  When 
a  soldier  wakes  his  first  thought  is  for  food,  and  at 
5  a.m.  they  were  all  discussing  bully  beef  and  biscuits. 


16  A  SURGEON  IN  KHAKI 

The  ship's  cook  had  prepared  cauldrons  of  tea, — and 
Tommy  loves  tea.  One  wag  after  breakfast  stood  on 
a  hatch  reciting,  "  Dearly  beloved  brethren,  the  Scripture 
moveth  us  in  sundry  places,"  to  a  congregation  of  grimy- 
faced  soldiers. 

At  12.30  midday  we  sighted  Le  Havre,  and  in  two 
hours  were  tied  alongside  the  wharf.  The  disembarka- 
tion rapidly  followed,  and  at  4  p.m.  we  were  on  the 
march  through  Le  Havre  to  our  encampment.  As  we 
steamed  into  Le  Havre  there  was  a  scene  of  the  wildest 
enthusiasm,  and  the  whole  harbour  front  was  a  mass 
of  cheering  men  and  women  and  children.  "  Vive 
TAngleterre  !  "  "  Vive  Tommy  !  "  "  Vive  I'entente 
cordiale  !  "  Flags  and  handkerchiefs  were  waved  from 
every  window,  and  the  picture  of  enthusiastic  welcome 
was  most  inspiring.  Our  men  seemed  to  thoroughly 
enjoy  it,  and  cheered  and  yelled  their  throaty  greetings 
as  loudly  and  as  heartily  as  the  French.  One  would 
call  in  a  bull  voice,  "  Are  we  downhearted  ?  "  and  the 
reply,  "  No !  "  from  thousands  of  throats,  echoed  and 
reverberated  over  the  sea  front. 

Then  would  come  a  piping  voice,  ''  Do  we  like 
beer  ?  "  followed  by  a  unanimous  roar  of  "  Yes."  The 
French  welcome  was  a  spontaneous  and  enthusiastic 
one,  and  Le  Havre,  gay  with  bunting  and  twined  flags, 
shouted  itself  hoarse  that  day.  I  visited  Le  Havre  some 
months  later  and  saw  a  crowded  British  transport 
arrive.  There  was  no  cheering,  no  flags,  no  excitement. 
At  the  wharf  was  a  big  hospital  ship,  and  wounded 
soldiers  were  being  carried  aboard  by  stretcher-bearers. 


LE  HAVRE  AND  HARFLEUR  17 

The  French  had,  since  August,  passed  through  some 
days  of  disappointment  and  despair,  and  the  German 
was  still  in  France.  The  frenzied  ecstasy  of  that  welcome 
of  August,  the  gifts  of  flowers,  of  fruit,  of  wine  were 
no  longer  there,  but  deep  down  there  was  still  the  same 
welcome,  unspoken  but  warm  and  sincere. 

A  dusty  march  of  eight  miles  on  a  hot,  blistering 
road  brought  us  to  our  camp  at  Harfleur.  We  were 
indeed  on  historic  ground.  Close  by  were  the  remains 
of  the  old  Castle  of  Harfleur  that  Henry  V.  and  his  men- 
at-arms  stormed  in  the  long  ago. 

On  this  same  field  Henry  is  said  to  have  addressed 
his  soldiers : 

"  And  you  good  yeomen, 
Whose  limbs  were  made  in  England,  show  us  here 
The  mettle  of  your  pasture ;  let  us  swear 
That  you  are  worth  your  breeding." 

It  was  on  this  field  and  at  that  time  that  old  Bardolph 
said  : 

"  Would  I  were  in  an  alehouse  in  London. 
I  would  give  all  my  fame  for  a  pot  of  ale  and  safety." 

So  here  again,  in  the  twentieth  century,  were  some 
thousands  of  good  yeomen  whose  limbs  were  made  in 
England,  and  a  pot  of  ale  would  have  been  relished  by 
all,  for  the  day  had  been  a  thirsty  one. 

Our  arrival  at  camp  was  not  expected.  The  com- 
mandant seemed  very  surprised  to  see  us,  but  told  us 
to  make  ourselves  at  home.  We  had  no  kits,  no 
blankets,  no  tents,  no  food — all  had  been  left  on  the 
wharf — and  no  hot  water  was  procurable.     We  made 


18  A  SURGEON  IN  KHAKI 

a  meal  off  our  "  iron  rations,"  whicli  consist  of  a  small 
waterproof  cover  holding  a  tin  of  bully  beef,  biscuits, 
pepper  and  salt  and  tea.  Pipes  were  lit  and  we  then 
lay  down  as  we  were,  under  the  lee  of  a  haystack,  and 
slept  till  bugle-call,  when  we  awoke,  cold  and  damp 
with  dew.  The  nights  were  very  cold  at  this  time 
and  the  days  terribly  hot. 

The  camp  at  Harfleur  had  about  five  or  six  thousand 
men,  composed  of  representatives  of  all  arms  of  the 
service — Highlanders,  Guardsmen,  Engineers,  and  details 
from  dozens  of  other  regiments.  We  were  reinforce- 
ments. Rumours  were  coming  through  at  this  time 
that  all  was  not  well  with  our  army,  and  we  v/ere  dis- 
quieted to  hear  that  it  was  being  steadily  pushed  back 
and  fighting  desperately.  The  retirement  of  our  army 
occasioned  anxiety  at  Le  Havre,  our  principal  base  at 
that  time,  and  the  reinforcements  at  Harfleur  could 
not  be  joined  up  till  the  position  became  clearer. 

At  Harfleur  we  got  little  authentic  news.  We 
lived  on  rumours,  and  some  of  these  were  of  the  most 
extraordinary  kind.  There  was  one  rumour  that  came 
through,  and  the  Tommies  fully  believed  it.  It  was 
said  that  the  Germans  cut  off  the  right  hand  of  every 
captured  stretcher-bearer,  and  killed  every  prisoner  of 
the  combatant  rank.  Our  men  were  quite  determined 
to  die  fighting,  and  the  stretcher-bearers  asked  for 
guns.  The  day  after  our  arrival  in  camp  we  were  given 
tents,  and  these  were  pitched  in  the  morning.  Twelve 
men  were  put  to  each  tent,  but  blankets  were  few  and 
we  could  only  give  four  blankets  to  each  tent.     Next 


A    KOAl)    OHirRlCTIOX    NKAK    llAKlLhLR. 


IIaRFLEUK — OUR    SLEEPINC,    ijUARTKR 


LE  HAVEE  AND  HARFLEUE  19 

day  the  tents  were  struck  and  packed  away  for  some 
unknown  reason,  and  that  night  we  all  had  to  sleep 
in  the  open.  The  officers'  kits  arrived  on  the  second 
day,  and  on  the  fourth  day  we  were  told  to  take  from 
them  only  what  was  absolutely  necessary.  It  was  said 
that  our  kits  were  to  be  either  packed  away  or  burned. 
It  was  said  also  that  the  whole  camp  equipment,  tents, 
blankets,  etc.,  were  to  be  burned.  Later  in  the  day 
this  order  was  countermanded  and  we  again  took 
possession  of  our  kits.  We  guessed  from  all  these 
various  orders  that  the  position  at  the  front  was  un- 
certain, and,  as  history  has  since  shown,  such  was  the 
case.  On  our  fourth  day  at  Harfleur  a  flying  man 
arrived  in  his  aeroplane  from  England,  and  we  all 
crowded  round  to  know  what  the  latest  news  was. 
He  had  none  to  give,  but  told  us  that  he  had  flown 
over  a  part  of  the  German  army.  I  think  that  he 
brought  some  important  information,  for  that  afternoon 
the  whole  camp  was  set  to  work  digging  trenches 
right  across  the  front  of  the  camp.  We  had  more 
rumours  of  "  tremendous  British  losses,"  "  breakdown 
of  French  mobilisation,'"  "  stubborn  fighting,"  but 
nothing  authentic  reached  us. 

However,  work  proceeded  feverishly  in  the  camp. 
Harfleur  was  on  the  main  road  leading  from  the  north 
to  Le  Havre.  It  was  said  that  the  Germans  were  ad- 
vancing, and  this  was  true.  A  raiding  force  of  20,000 
men — one  German  division — of  cavalry,  gunners,  and 
infantry — the  latter  on  fast  motor-lorries — was  cer- 
tainly moving  on  Le  Havre,  and  the  intention  was  to 


20  A  SURGEON  IN  KHAKI 

destroy  tlie  British  base  depot,  burn  our  huge  stores, 
and  capture  and  sink  all  the  shipping  and  blow  up  the 
railways.  Our  camp  was  to  delay  this  raid  till  the 
French  could  move  up  some  divisions.  Accordingly, 
lines  of  trenches  were  dug  across  the  turnip  fields 
and  meadows.  The  farmhouses  were  surrounded  by 
trenches  and  put  into  a  state  of  defence.  The  doctors 
and  stretcher-bearers  were  ordered  to  occupy  an 
orchard  about  500  yards  in  rear  of  the  trenches.  There 
was  an  extraordinary  resemblance  between  one  old 
farmhouse  adjoining  the  camp  and  the  famous 
farmhouse  of  Hougoumont  at  Waterloo.  There  was 
an  old  chapel  in  the  centre  of  the  farm,  near 
to  the  big  two-storied  stone  dwelling.  Behind  the 
chapel  were  the  wine  cellars  and  stables.  To  the 
right  of  the  house  was  a  long  orchard  surrounded 
by  a  stone  wall  about  5  feet  high.  The  farmhouse 
and  farmyard  were  surrounded  by  a  high  stone  wall. 
Also  there  was  a  big  gateway  as  at  Hougoumont.  In- 
side and  lining  the  stone  walls  were  tall  pine  trees. 
Our  men  soon  began  to  make  some  alterations  in  the 
quaint  old  Norman  place.  The  lower  branches  of  the 
trees  were  lopped  off.  Trenches  were  made  inside 
the  stone  wall  and  stones  were  pulled  out  of  the  base 
for  loopholes  for  rifles,  so  that  our  men  could  lie  in  the 
ditch  and  fire  through  the  bottom  of  the  wall.  The 
same  thing  was  done  in  the  orchard,  and  men  of  the  Rifle 
Brigade  were  told  off  to  line  its  walls  when  the  time 
came.  This  farm,  if  exposed  to  artillery,  of  course 
would  have  been  a  death-trap,  but  against  infantry 


LE  HAVRE  AND  HARFLEUR  21 

or  cavalry  would  have  been  a  very  hornet's  nest 
for  the  enemy  to  attack.  The  gateways  were  pulled 
down,  barricades  were  placed  across  the  gaps,  and 
machine-guns  controlled  the  angles  and  were  able 
to  sweep  the  open  spaces,  should  a  rush  be  made,  with 
a  hail  of  lead. 

All  was  ready  for  a  second  Hougoumont,  and  the 
picture  was  completed  by  the  old  farmer's  wife,  who 
was  ordered  to  leave  the  farm,  but  who  firmly  refused 
to  budge.  Had  the  Germans  come,  like  her  ancient 
prototype  on  that  June  day  at  Waterloo,  she  would 
most  likely  have  taken  shelter  at  the  foot  of  the  cross 
in  the  chapel. 

But  the  Germans  did  not  come,  and  history  is 
deprived  of  a  moving  and  stirring  story. 

It  was  tragic  but  ludicrous  to  see  the  blank  despair 
and  consternation  on  the  face  of  the  old  farmer  when 
we  started  to  lop  down  some  of  his  trees,  dig  trenches 
round  his  farm  and  through  his  turnip  fields.  Knowing 
very  little  about  the  war,  and  only  vaguely  interested 
in  the  invasion  of  France,  he  was  deeply  concerned 
about  his  turnips  and  his  trees.  Everything,  however, 
was  put  right  for  him  before  we  left. 

When  all  our  preparations  for  defence  were  complete 
two  German  aeroplanes  passed  over  us  going  towards  Le 
Havre.  Here  they  were  fired  on,  and  they  then  returned 
to  have  a  further  look  at  Harfleur  and  circled  slowly 
over  our  camp.  As  we  had  no  aircraft  guns  they 
descended  fairly  low,  and  I  thinli  must  have  seen 
everything  there  was  to  see.     We  had  field-glasses  out 


22  A  SURGEON  IN  KHAKI 

and  could  easily  discern  the  black  cross  painted  on  the 
wings  of  the  Taube. 

So  there  we  were  in  our  trenches  commanding  the 
roads  to  Le  Havre,  with  a  Hougoumont  and  an  orchard, 
and  stone  walls  lined  with  riflemen.     History,  so  far,  has 
not  recorded  how  we  "  held  the  gate  "  to  Le  Havre  with- 
out firing  a   shot  and  without  losing  a  man,  but  I  am 
sure  that  it  was  our  preparations,  seen  by  the  enemy 
aeroplanes,  that  deterred  the  Germans  from  coming  on. 
It  was  a  raiding  German  force,  and  a  raiding  force  has 
no  time  to  tackle  defences  and  strongly  held  positions. 
A  brigade  of  French  cavalry  moved  across  our  front  and 
rode  as  a  big  cavalry  screen  towards  the  advancing 
raiders.    Fifteen  thousand  French  troops  followed  them ; 
and  when  tv/elve  miles  from  our  camp  the  Germans 
turned  back,  the  menace  was  over,  and  we  breathed 
again. 

A  fast  scouting  motor-car  containing  three  Prussian 
ofi&cers  ran  headlong  into  a  barricade  cleverly  placed 
across  a  road  about  ten  miles  from  Harfleur.  A  ditch, 
broad  but  shallow,  was  made  across  the  road  near  a  curve, 
and  artfully  concealed  with  gravel  laid  on  thin  planking 
across  the  top.  The  car  rushed  right  on  to  this  and  was 
upset.  Some  concealed  French  cavalry  then  rode  up 
and  captured  the  party. 

The  French  officer  who  made  the  capture  told  me  that 
the  German  officers  were  livid  with  anger  when  he  and 
his  men  rode  up  with  drawn  sabres.  One  of  the  German 
officers  had  a  revolver  in  his  hand,  which  he  flung 
violently  at  the  head  of  the  chauffeujv 


LE  HAVRE  AND  HARFLEUR  23 

This  defence  of  the  road  at  Harfleur  was  one  of 
those  minor  incidents  of  the  war  which  has  been  forgotten 
or  ignored  in  the  swirl  of  the  big  happenings  at  that 
time.  The  situation  of  Le  Havre  and  Harfleur  was  then 
one  of  grave  peril  and  gave  rise  to  considerable  anxiety. 
One  need  not  have  been  on  the  spot  to  grasp  the 
dangerous  possibilities.  Our  defence  of  Harfleur  ended 
tamely.  We  were  told  one  day  that  Lord  Kitchener 
was  at  Le  Havre  and  had  ordered  the  evacuation  of  the 
big  base  by  the  British.  That  night  we  were  ordered 
by  our  commandant  to  strike  the  camp,  move  into 
Le  Ha\Te,  and  embark  on  transports  for  a  destination 
unknown. 

The  day  before  we  left  Le  Havre  some  British 
stragglers  from  our  retreating  army  turned  up  in  camp. 
About  twenty-five  dirty,  grimy,  footsore  men,  with 
unkempt  hair  and  stubbly  beards,  wandered  in  and  told 
us  that  they  had  lost  their  regiments  and  their  way  after 
Mons.  Since  then  they  had  been  gipsying  through  France 
towards  the  coast.  Sometimes  they  got  a  lift  on  a 
farmer's  cart,  but  mostly  they  walked.  They  said  that 
the  French  people  had  treated  them  very  well,  and  they 
certainly  did  not  look  hungry.  As  usual,  they  told  most 
harrowing  tales.  One  man  said  that  the  whole  army 
had  been  captured  by  an  army  of  twenty  million 
Germans  ! 

On  the  morning  of  our  last  day  at  Harfleur  we  were 
all  thrilled  by  the  visit  of  a  German  spy.  I  have  said 
previously  that  when  the  trenches  were  being  dug 
at  Harfleur  the   medical  detachment  was  sent  to  an 


24  A  SUEGEON  IN  KHAKI 

orchard  in  the  rear.  A  road  led  past  the  gate  of  this 
orchard.  At  the  gateway  we  had  two  of  our  men  on 
sentry-go.  Farther  down  the  road  was  a  French  sentry 
with  a  fixed  bayonet.  At  3  a.m.  a  powerful  two- 
seater  automobile  dashed  up  this  road  and  pulled  up  at 
the  gateway.  The  driver  had  on  a  heavy  khaki  motor 
overcoat  and  a  khaki  cap.  His  face  was  muffled  in  a 
khaki  scarf.  An  officer,  also  in  khaki,  stepped  out  and 
began  questioning  our  men  at  the  gate.  He  asked 
how  many  men  were  in  the  camp ;  were  there  any  big 
guns,  and  where  were  they  ?  Had  any  ammunition 
been  brought  up  that  day  ?  Our  sentries  were  heavy 
north  -  countrymen,  recently  enlisted,  and  did  not 
tumble  to  the  fact  that  it  was  an  unusual  thing  for  a 
British  officer  to  put  such  questions  to  a  private  on 
sentry-go.  The  ofi&cer  then  got  on  his  car  and  went 
back  in  the  direction  of  Le  Havre.  We  were  all  agreed 
that  the  strange  officer  was  a  spy  dressed  up  to  look 
like  a  British  officer.  The  French  told  us  that  Le  Havre 
was  full  of  spies  at  this  time,  and  that  they  had  made 
many  arrests  of  suspects. 


CHAPTER   III. 
FROM   LE   HAVRE  TO  THE  BAY  OF  BISCAY. 

We  knew  that  serious  events  must  have  happened 
when  K.  of  K.  had  personally  visited  Le  Havre  and  had 
ordered  its  evacuation.  It  was  Napoleon  who  said  that 
it  was  a  disastrous  thing  to  attempt  to  change  an 
army's  base  during  the  actual  progress  of  a  war.  But 
in  this  war  old  maxims  and  trite  sayings  go  by  the 
board.  Anyone  having  the  most  elementary  know- 
ledge of  war,  and  what  an  army  in  the  field  signifies,  will 
agree  that  even  if  changing  a  base  may  not  lead  to  dis- 
aster, it  is  nevertheless  a  very  formidable  and  a  very 
risky  move.  Le  Havre  at  this  time  was  a  huge  base  from 
which  our  army  in  the  field  was  receiving  its  suppHes. 
Transports  conveying  all  the  necessaries  for  a  fighting 
army  unloaded  their  cargoes  on  its  wharves.  From 
there  the  supplies  were  sent  by  train  to  the  advanced 
base  in  the  centre  of  France,  and  from  there  onward  to 
the  various  refilling  stations.  The  destruction  of  Le 
Havre,  or  its  temporary  loss  as  a  base,  would  have 
been  a  calamity.  The  army  would  have  ceased  to 
receive  food,  waggons,  ammunition  and  equipment, 
guns,  horses,  forage,  reinforcements,  hospital  supplies, 
etc.    An  army  without  ammunition  and  food  is  no  longer 

25 


26  A  SURGEON  IN  KHAKI 

of  any  fighting  value.  Think  also  of  the  quantities  of 
material  necessary  to  supply  an  army  of  70,000  men, 
and  this  will  give  some  idea  of  the  immense  war  depot 
Le  Havre  was  at  this  time.  Circumstances  must  have 
indeed  been  serious  to  have  necessitated  a  change  of 
base.  It  meant  also  that  the  railway  arrangements 
so  carefully  thought  out,  and  which  had  so  far  been 
in  operation,  would  have  to  be  suddenly  changed. 
Supply  trains  would  have  to  be  sent  to  the  front  from 
some  other  base,  and  returning  empty  supply  trains 
and  hospital  trains  would  have  to  be  diverted  from 
Le  Havre  to  the  place  chosen  as  the  future  base.  The 
task  was  a  gigantic  one,  and  was  rendered  more  so 
because  it  had  to  be  completed  in  a  hurry. 

We  reached  Le  Havre  from  Harfleur  in  the  late  after- 
noon. A  large  convoy  of  Belgian  ambulances  full  of 
wounded  was  moving  through  the  streets  towards  the 
wharves,  and  a  French  Infantry  Division  passed  us  in 
full  panoply  of  war  going  east.  Six  large  transports 
with  steam  up  were  lying  at  the  wharves.  The  wharves 
were  a  scene  of  unparalleled  activity,  and  when  one  got 
right  down  amidst  this  activity  and  looked  around,  one 
could  realise  that  things  were  very  chaotic.  Every  one 
was  shouting  and  cursing;  contradictory  orders  were 
given ;  some  stores  which  had  just  been  loaded  in  one 
of  the  holds  of  one  transport  were  being  again  unloaded. 
Through  careless  handling  a  huge  crate  of  iron  bedsteads 
for  a  military  hospital  fell  into  the  sea  between  the 
ship  and  the  wharf.  But  as  the  stores  were  Government 
property — therefore  nobody's  property— no  one  seemed 


LE  HAVRE  TO  THE  BAY  OF  BISCAY      27 

to  mind  very  much.     The  stage  between  the  ship  and  the 
big  sheds  was  packed  with  all  sorts  of  goods  in  inextric- 
able confusion.     Here  were  bales  of  hospital  blankets 
dumped  on  kegs  of  butter,  there  boxes  of  biscuits  lying 
packed  in  a  corner,  with  a  forgotten  hose-pipe  playing 
water  on  them.     Inside  the  sheds  were  machine-guns, 
heavy  field  pieces,  ammunition,  some  aeroplanes,  crowds 
of  ambulance  waggons,  London  buses,  heavy  transport 
waggons,  kitchens,  beds,  tents  for  a  general  hospital, 
stacks  of  rifles,  bales  of  straw,  mountainous  bags  of  oats, 
flour,  beef,  potatoes,  crates  of  bully  beef,  telephones  and 
telegraphs,  water  carts,  field  kitchens,  unending  rolls  of 
barbed  wire,  shovels,  picks,  and  so  on.     All  had  been 
brought  into  the  sheds  and  left  there  in  a  higgledy- 
piggledy  fashion.    An  Army  Service  man  was  trying  in 
despair  to  get  some  forage  on  board ;  a  colonel  of  the 
Medical  Staff  was  trying  to  get  his  Base  Hospital  on 
board.    There  was  apparently  no  single  brain  in  control, 
and  the  loading  of  the  ships  went  on  in  the  most  extra- 
ordinary way.     Things  nearest  the  ship's  side  were  put 
in  first.    Part  of  a  Base  Hospital  was  put  in  with  part 
of  a  Battery,  followed  by  bundles  of  compressed  straw 
fodder  and  boxes  of  soap. 

The  transport  Turcoman  was  full  of  troops.  There 
seemed  to  be  thousands  of  them  on  board,  and  the  decks 
w^ere  packed  with  men.  On  walking  up  the  gangway  I 
w^as  met  by  the  officer  commanding  the  troops,  and  he 
told  me  that  I  could  not  be  allowed  on  board  with  any 
men  as  the  ship  was  already  overcrowded.  I  told  him 
that  my  orders  were  to  embark  on  the  Turcoman,  but 


28  A  SURGEON  IN  KHAKI 

the  reply,  "  Very  sorry  indeed,  but  it  can't  be  done,'* 
settled  the  matter. 

So  I  descended,  and  with  difficulty  picked  my  way 
along  another  wharf  and  found  another  transport,  the 
Cestrian,  also  a  centre  of  the  same  scene  of  bustle  and 
activity  as  the  Turcoman.  The  Cestrian  was  crowded 
with  soldiers,  and  was  being  frantically  loaded  up  with 
all  sorts  of  goods,  from  aeroplanes  to  bandages. 

I  got  my  men  on  board  and  told  them  to  make  them- 
selves as  comfortable  as  they  could  on  deck,  and  after 
some  searching  round  at  last  found  a  corner  of  the 
smoking-room  which  would  serve  me  for  a  bed  for  the 
night.    Here  my  servant  dumped  down  my  valise. 

I  was  unable  to  find  out  the  destination  of  the  Turco- 
man ;  nobody  seemed  to  know,  but  there  were  rumours 
that  it  was  to  be  "  somewhere  in  the  Bay  of  Biscay." 
Nobody  knew  where  the  Cestrian  was  going.  As  my 
orders  were  to  travel  by  the  Turcoman,  and  as  I  was 
really  on  the  Cestrian,  I  was  anxious  to  find  out  if  the 
destination  of  the  two  boats  was  to  be  the  same  port. 
But  nobody  could  tell  me,  so  I  lit  my  pipe  of  tobacco, 
leaned  over  the  ship's  side,  and  never  troubled  any  more 
about  my  orders.  I  really  did  not  know  whether  the 
Cestrian  was  going  to  England  or  another  part  of  France, 
or  the  Black  Sea  for  that  matter. 

The  scene  on  the  Cestrian  was  a  strange  one.  It  was 
now  quite  dark  and  the  loading  of  the  cargo  was  carried 
out  under  electric  flares.  There  were  on  board  2600 
soldiers  and  600  horses.  These  unfortunate  horses 
had  been  put  on  board  twenty-four  hours  before  the 


LE  HAVRE  TO  THE  BAY  OF  BISCAY      29 

troops  embarked,  instead  of  the  other  way  about,  and 
the  smell  from  the  hot,  stifling  horse-boxes  was  over- 
powering. Why  these  poor  beasts  were  not  embarked 
last  of  all,  was  a  mystery.  Imagine  600  horses  cooped 
up  in  narrow  boxes  during  a  long,  hot,  stifling  summer 
day,  when  they  could  easily  have  been  kept  at  the  horse 
depot  close  by  till  the  last  minute  ! 

One  horse  died  before  we  started,  and  was  slung  out 
by  ropes  on  to  the  wharf. 

This  horse  episode  was  the  occasion  of  much  scathing 
comment  amongst  senior  officers  and  old  cavalry  and 
artillery  non-coms. 

It  is  a  pity  that  some  of  the  higher  command — those 
responsible — could  not  have  heard  the  remarks  of  these 
knowing  old  non-commissioned  officers. 

At  last  the  ship's  holds  were  full.  Gangways  were 
up  and  we  dropped  slowly  down  the  locks  to  the  Seine 
mouth,  and  so  out  into  the  Channel.  We  were  met  by  a 
fierce,  gusty  head  wind  and  welcomed  it  for  the  horses' 
sakes.  Large  wind  ventilators  were  arranged  to  allow 
the  fresh  air  to  reach  the  horse-boxes. 

Our  men  slept  on  the  decks,  and  there  were  so  many 
of  them  that  to  step  one's  way  over  them  would  have 
been  almost  impossible. 

The  dining-rooms,  cabins,  and  smoking-rooms  were 
full  of  sleeping  or  dozing  officers.  I  managed  to  com- 
mandeer an  old  sofa  cushion,  and  lay  on  that  in  the 
corner  of  the  smoking-room  and  went  to  sleep,  and 
dreamt  of  thousands  of  horses  looking  reproachfully 
at  me  out  of  boxes. 


30  A  SURGEON  IN  KHAKI 

At  break  of  day  we  were  all  up  at  bugle-call  and  soon 
washed.  The  ship's  cook  was  a  man  of  some  eminence 
in  his  profession,  for  he  had  provided  porridge  and  milk, 
ham  and  eggs,  bread  and  butter  and  tea  for  our  break- 
fast, and,  filled  with  amazement,  we  sat  round  to  enjoy  it. 
Generally  of  meals  on  a  transport  there  are  none.  A 
big  cruiser  was  seen  after  breakfast  to  be  bearing  rapidly 
down  on  us,  and  the  usual  "  optimist  "  present,  after 
carefully  observing  her  through  a  telescope,  pronounced 
her  nationality  as  German,  and  that  it  was  now  a 
watery  grave  in  the  Bay  of  Biscay  for  2600  men  and  600 
horses.  As  she  came  nearer  we  showed  our  flag,  and  she 
displayed  the  French  ensign.  We  gave  her  our  number 
and  dipped  our  bit  of  bunting,  and  the  great  ironclad 
sheered  off.  It  was  a  relief  to  know  that  she  was  about, 
and  looking  after  our  transports. 

On  the  way  out  from  Le  Havre  we  passed  the  United 
States  battleship  Tennessee,  and  our  men  seeing  some  of 
her  sailors  standing  in  a  group  gazing  at  us,  gave  a  cheer 
and  the  usual  ''  Are  we  downhearted  ?  No  !  "  greeting. 
The  American  sailors  gave  a  real  good  hearty  cheer,  and 
yells  of  "  good  luck '' ;  but  an  officer  then  ran  up  to  them 
and  said  something,  and  they  became  suddenly  silent, 
and  only  waved  their  hands.  They  had  probably  been 
told  by  their  officer  that  they  were  "  neutrals,''  and 
belonged  to  the  battleship  of  a  nation  friendly  to  all  the 
belligerents.  But  we  knew  that  they  were  with  us 
"  inside,"  and  anyhow  the  Americans  have  not  been 
neutral  in  their  hearts.  They  are  all  "  for  us  "  and  "  for 
the  Allies." 


LE  HAVRE  TO  THE  BAY  OF  BISCAY       31 

Life  on  board  our  transport  was  uneventful.  We 
smoked  and  slept  and  ate.  There  was  no  room  to  walk 
about.     I  never  saw  such  a  crowded  ship. 

We  had  on  board  the  complete  •personnel  of  a  Base 
Hospital,  and  the  medical  officer  commanding  told  me 
that  he  had  orders  to  pitch  his  hospital  at  once  at 
Nantes  in  order  to  take  in  wounded,  as  there  was  a  big 
demand  for  more  beds.  In  spite  of  his  utmost  endeavours 
he  could  not  get  his  hospital  equipment  on  the  Cestrian. 

All  the  instruments,  dressings,  and  X-ray  apparatus 
had  been  left  behind  for  another  boat,  and  he  thought 
that  he  might  not  be  able  to  get  them  for  another  week, 
or  perhaps  longer. 

This  was  but  another  example  of  the  lack  of  control 
at  Le  Havre  during  the  change  of  base ;  a  hospital  was 
badly  wanted  at  Nantes ;  all  the  personnel  and  half  the 
equipment  were  sent  away,  and  the  other  half  left  on  the 
wharves.  We  learned  later  that  the  holds  of  our  boat 
the  Cestrian  were  not  full  when  she  left  Le  Havre,  but 
that  she  had  been  ordered  to  leave  on  account  of  the 
horses  being  in  such  a  bad  state  from  the  hot,  stifling 
atmosphere  in  their  quarters  below  decks. 

It  was  necessary  to  proceed  to  sea  to  get  a  current 
of  cold  air  down  the  ventilating  shafts  to  the  horses' 
cribs.  This  senseless  blundering  over  the  horses  led 
to  the  death  of  several  of  the  poor  beasts,  and  besides 
crippled  a  Base  Hospital  at  a  time  when  it  was  urgently 
needed.  Over  and  over  again  during  this  war  one  has 
met  with  instances  of  a  want  of  reasoned  judgment  on 
the    part    of    senior    controlling    officers.     In    certain 


32  A  SURGEON  IN  KHAKI 

emergencies  they  have  been  unable  to  "  orientate  " 
themselves — to  use  an  Americanism — or  to  "  envisage  " 
a  situation. 

Blunders,  slips,  miscalculations,  carelessness,  in  time 
of  war  mean  the  loss  of  valuable  lives.  We  want  alert, 
clear- brained,  thinking  men  in  all  responsible  posts. 
If  a  senior  officer  shows  himself  lacking  in  these  essentials 
— then  he  must  go.  Many  of  the  responsible  French 
army  officials  at  the  beginning  of  the  campaign  proved 
themselves  lacking  in  initiative  and  judgment.  Joffre 
sent  these  officers  to  "  Limoges.''  We  should  send  our 
incapables  to  "  Stellenbosch.''  Both  places  are  indica- 
tive of  a  quiet  retirement,  where  they  can  live  without 
thinking,  where  there  are  quiet  clubs,  cigars  and  cock- 
tails, and  comfortable  chairs  for  an  afternoon  nap. 
The  good  ship  Cestrian  was  a  very  fine  steamer,  but  a 
very  dirty  one  at  this  epoch.  She  badly  wanted  a  clean- 
up. The  lavatories  and  water-closets  were  indescribably 
filthy  and  foul,  and  acrid  ammoniacal  fumes  permeated 
the  ship.  No  attempt  was  made  at  ordinary  cleanliness, 
and  no  disinfectants  were  employed.  Words  could 
hardly  describe  the  appallingly  filthy  state  of  the  urinals 
and  closets.  It  would  have  been  so  very  simple  to  have 
made  things  cleaner.  A  sanitary  squad  could  have 
been  arranged  in  a  few  minutes  to  keep  these  places 
tidy  and  to  maintain  some  control.  But  what  was 
every  one's  business  was  nobody's  business,  and  nothing 
was  done  during  the  three  days  and  nights  we  were  at 
sea. 

As  our  ship  approached  the  mouth  of  the  Loire  we 


•>  V.Q!?*-- 


TKANsroKi    "Cp:stkian"  i.n  thk  Bay  of  Biscay. 


Thk  "Ckstrian '■  AT  St.  Nazaike. 


LE  HAVKE  TO  THE  BAY  OF  BISCAY       33 

saw  three  large  transports  ahead  of  us  and  four  more 
were  following  up  behind.  We  slowly  steamed  through 
the  narrow  lock  entrance  to  St.  Nazaire  and,  after  the 
usual  delay  in  getting  alongside,  finally  tied  up  to  the 
wharf.  The  day  was  stiflingly  hot  and  dusty,  and  we 
were  glad  to  leave  our  ship  and  get  on  shore.  The 
horses  were  at  once  unloaded,  and  very  bad  the  poor 
beasts  looked.  It  was  pleasant,  however,  to  see  them, 
once  they  were  on  land,  looking  round  and  neighing 
with  evident  pleasure. 

The  troops  were  marched  out  to  a  large  field  or  a  dry 
salt  marsh  some  few  miles  out  of  town.  A  rest  camp 
or  camp  for  army  details  was  being  rapidly  arranged, 
and  areas  were  being  marked  out  for  the  various  units, — 
gunners,  engineers,  and  infantry  regiments,  and  there 
was  considerable  bustle.  No  tents  had  yet  arrived 
and  the  camp  was  quite  exposed.  Fortunately,  the 
weather  was  good  and  sleeping  out  was  no  hardship. 
I  reported  my  arrival  to  the  camp  commandant,  and  he 
said  that  he  did  not  know  where  I  had  to  go  or  what  I 
had  to  do.  He  told  me  to  "  wait  round  and  see  what 
turned  up."  At  this  period  one's  arrival  was  always 
unexpected.  We  always  got  a  smile  of  welcome  and 
were  always  told  to  "  wait  round.'"  There  was  never 
any  demonstrative  hurry.  John  Bull  on  the  job  doesn't 
make  much  fuss.  I  think  that  he  does  not  make  enough. 
As  there  was  nothing  to  do  apparently,  and  as  nobody 
seemed  to  want  me,  I  strolled  back  to  the  city  of  St. 
Nazaire  and  had  afternoon  tea  in  a  pleasant  cafe. 

As    I  was    leaving   the  cafe  I  met  the  A.D.M.S. 
3 


34  A  SURGEON  IN  KHAKI 

(Assistant  Director  of  Medical  Services).  He  asked 
me  what  duty  I  was  on.  I  told  him  that  I  had  just 
arrived  and  had  reported  my  arrival,  and  was  really 
wondering  myself  why  I  was  at  St.  Nazaire.  The 
A.D.M.S.  said, "  We  are  wanting  medical  officers  urgently 
at  the  front.  Would  you  please  come  with  me.'*  On 
our  way  to  the  office  he  explained  that  "  the  medical 
service  had  received  some  losses — casualties  and  missing, 
that  there  were  a  lot  of  wounded  and  a  lack  of  hospital 
necessaries."  He  asked  me  if  I  had  any  "  bandages, 
wool,  or  lint  with  me."  I  had  none,  of  course,  and  the 
A.D.M.S.  said  that  he  had  none  to  spare  for  the  front. 
I  thought  of  the  Base  Hospital  on  the  Cestrian  landed 
with  only  half  its  equipment,  and  of  what  a  wonderful 
nation  we  are,  and  what  a  magnificent  organiser  John 
Bull  is  when  he  is  really  "  on  the  job." 

I  received  written  orders  from  the  A.D.M.S.  to 
proceed  by  train  at  4  a.m.  next  day  to  Le  Mans,  and 
report  arrival  and  await  orders  there.  Le  Mans  was  the 
"  advanced  base  "  of  the  British  army.  I  learned  here 
also  that  our  gallant  army  was  retreating  towards  Paris, 
and  fighting  stubbornly  against  overwhelming  numbers 
of  Germans  flushed  with  victory,  and  I  was  very  glad 
to  get  orders  to  join  up  with  my  countrymen  and  get  a 
chance  of  "  doing  my  bit  "  also. 


CHAPTER   IV. 

FROM  THE  BAY  OF  BISCAY  TO  EAST  OF  PARIS. 

After  having  received  these  definite  orders  I  got  my 
kit  again  conveyed  to  the  Cestrian  transport  and  slept 
that  night  in  my  old  corner  of  the  smoking-room.  At 
2.45  a.m.  the  surgeons  detailed  to  join  the  army  were 
up.  A  hasty  cup  of  coffee  and  an  apology  for  a  wash — 
and  we  were  down  the  ship-side,  and  on  the  way  to  the 
gare.  The  railway  station  at  St.  Nazaire  at  this  time 
looked  quite  picturesque  in  the  early  morning.  Its 
platforms  were  covered  with  straw,  and  rows  of  sleeping 
French  soldiers  lay  comfortably  around,  while  a  stolid 
Grenadier  sentry  stood  propped  against  the  wall. 
There  is  no  hurry  at  a  French  military  station.  The 
train  was  timed  to  start  at  4  a.m.,  but  that  did  not 
matter.  At  5  a.m.  it  was  quite  ready.  "  C'est  la 
guerre."' 

There  were  five  of  us  travelling  together — all  medical 
officers — two  Scotchmen,  one  Irishman,  one  English- 
man, and  one  New  Zealander.  A  very  gruff  Railway 
Transport  officer  gave  me  a  military  pass  for  the  party. 
This  gave  us  permission,  we  noticed,  to  travel  to  Paris 
via  Le  Mans.  The  pass  was  signed  by  the  French 
authorities,  but  we  were  never  asked  to  show  it  again. 


36  A  SURGEON  IN  KHAKI 

The  khaki  uniform  proclaimed  we  were  British,  the 
Sam  Browne  belt  and  stars  showed  we  were  ofi&cers, 
and  the  red-cross  brassards  on  our  left  arms  indicated 
our  particular  line  of  business.  As  the  train  moved  ofE 
we  wished  our  Railway  Transport  officer — an  English- 
man— a  good  morning,  but  this  seemed  to  offend  him, 
for  he  glared  at  us.  Our  Irish  surgeon  remarked  that 
all  Railway  Transport  officers  were  queer  fish  and  very 
unpopular.  Perhaps  their  particular  specialty  makes 
them  so,  but  I  have  never  heard  an  R.T.O.  referred  to 
in  any  other  but  denunciatory  terms.  A  sanguinary 
adjective  is  always  prefixed  to  the  mystic  trinity  R.T.O. 
It  is  said  that  they  lead  unhappy  lives  and  generally 
die  of  long,  lingering  illnesses.  We  soon  settled  down 
comfortably  in  our  luxurious  first-class  carriage  and 
tried  to  get  to  know  each  other.  No  very  difficult  task 
amongst  doctors,  who  are  generally  most  sociable 
animals.  One  of  us  was  a  specialist  in  fevers  and  had 
passed  most  of  his  days  in  typhoid  and  scarlet  fever 
wards.  One  was  a  neurologist,  with  pronounced  views 
on  the  power  of  suggestion  in  treating  cases  of  incipient 
insanity.  One  was  a  pure  physician,  who  said  that  the 
surgeons  were  not  men  of  science  but  merely  craftsmen, 
and  were  too  fond  of  using  the  knife. 

The  surgeons,  as  became  their  calling,  treated  all 
criticism  with  good-humoured  complaisance.  We 
talked  a  lot  about  the  duties  of  the  doctor  in  this  war, 
and  we  were  all  very  curious  to  know  the  role  played 
by  a  doctor  when  he  was  attached  to  a  cavalry 
regiment,  to  a  battery,  or  to  a  field  ambulance.     None 


FROM  THE  BAY  OF  BISCAY  TO  PARIS   37 

of  us  knew  very  much  about  it,  but  we  all  were  agreed 
that  we  had  somehow  to  get  alongside  Mr.  Thomas 
Atkins  when  he  was  wounded  in  battle,  get  him  to  a  safe 
place,  and  give  him  of  our  best.  Curiously  enough, 
although  we  were  all  scattered  later  on  to  various  units 
of  different  divisions,  I  met  all  my  fellow-travellers 
again  one  time  or  another  in  the  firing  line.  One  of  the 
Scotchmen  I  met  just  as  he  came  out  from  under  heavy 
shrapnel  fire,  and  I  asked  him  how  he  liked  it.  His 
reply  is  not  printable.  One  I  met  in  a  field  ambulance 
later  with  sleeves  rolled  up  and  busy  dressing  the 
wounds  of  a  crowd  of  men  just  brought  in  from  the 
firing  line.  One  I  met  in  a  town  in  northern  France 
looking  cold  and  wet  and  miserable,  and  asked  him  also 
how  he  liked  the  war.  He  gave  an  expressive  shrug. 
I  have  not  met  anyone  yet  who  liked  the  war,  except 
artillery  officers. 

Our  train  travelled  slowly  from  St.  Nazaire  along 
the  Loire  to  the  capital  city  of  Nantes.  This  charming 
city  is  situated  on  the  banks  of  the  delightful  river. 
We  had  a  lot  of  khaki  and  French  soldiers  on  board  the 
train,  and  as  usual  they  fraternised  well  together. 
Tommy  Atkins  gets  on  amazingly  well  with  the  French 
piou-piou,  and  the  French  grenadier  chaffs  Tommy  a 
lot  and  enjoys  his  company.  When  they  get  together 
they  exchange  caps  for  a  time.  This  is  a  sign  of  un- 
alterable friendship. 

To  see  a  French  Cuirassier  wearing  a  khaki  cap  and 
a  Highlander  in  kilts  wearing  a  Cuirassier's  casque 
with  its  flowing  horsetails  always  excited  the  merriment 


38  A  SUBGEON  IN  KHAKI 

and  loud  "  vives  "  of  the  French  people.  The  kilts 
of  our  Highlanders  are  also  greatly  admired  by  the 
French.  They  were  consumed  with  curiosity  to  know 
if  the  Scotchmen  wore  any  trousers  under  them.  Khaki 
was  a  great  novelty  along  the  Loire  valley  at  this  time, 
and  our  appearance  roused  tremendous  enthusiasm 
and  applause.  At  Nantes  the  good  people  brought  us 
baskets  of  apples,  and  little  French  flags  which  we  duly 
stuck  on  our  coats  or  caps  and  wore  till  the  train 
steamed  out  of  the  station. 

Crowds  of  people  rushed  down  to  the  railway  plat- 
form to  see  us  and  cheer  us  on  our  way.  Tommy's 
'*  Are  we  downhearted  ? '"  and  its  stentorian  "  No !  "  had 
a  very  optimistic  sound,  and  the  French  liked  it. 

At  Angers  the  train  stopped  two  hours,  and  the 
officers  strolled  round  the  town.  The  men  were  not 
allowed  off  the  platform.  Angers,  the  ancient  capital 
of  the  old  Counts  of  Anjou,  is  a  delightfully  sleepy  city. 
A  princess  of  Anjou  was  in  the  long  ago  a  Queen  of 
England,  and  a  fine  statue  to  her  memory  stands  in  the 
centre  of  the  town.  It  was  dressed  with  an  inter- 
twined Union  Jack  and  the  Tricolor  when  we  were 
there. 

The  old  castle  of  Angers,  with  its  deep  moat  and 
castellated  towers,  has  withstood  the  ravages  of 
centuries  and  is  one  of  the  finest  examples  of  mediaeval 
military  masonry.  Our  walk  through  this  city  excited 
considerable  comment  and  notice.  It  was  Sunday, 
and  a  big  congregation  just  leaving  church  stopped 
to  stare  at  us  and  possibly  to  wonder  why  khaki  was  in 


FEOM  THE  BAY  OF  BISCAY  TO  PARIS     39 

Angers.     As  we  passed  a  cafe  crowded  with  loungers 
sipping  wine  and  coffee  at  the  little  tables  on  the  street, 
all  stood  up  to  look  at  us.     We  felt  very  embarrassed 
and  did  not  much  like  the  novel  experience,  so  sat 
round  a  small  table  ourselves,  and  while  drinking  our 
wine  turned  round  to  look  at  the  people  also.     A  French 
colonel  caught  our  eye,  and  one  of  our  party  held  a  glass 
towards  him,  saying,  "  Vive  la  France ! ''    The  effect 
was  theatrical :  all  jumped  up,  and  lifting  their  glasses 
shouted,  "Vive  TAngleterre!  "  "  Vive I'entente  cordiale! " 
Several  French  officers  and  citizens  with  ladies  pulled 
up  their  chairs  to  our  table,  and  we  all  drank  wine  very 
sociably  together.     One  of  our  party  of  surgeons  had 
been  educated  as  a  youth  in   Belgium  and  was  an 
excellent  French  linguist.    The  people  were  all  very 
anxious  to  hear  the  latest  news.    We  had  none  to  give 
except  that  large  British  reinforcements  were  coming 
over,  and  that  England  was  now  fairly  on  the  job.     In 
these  early  days  of  the  war,  when  everything  in  France 
was  "  electrical,''  such  sentiments  were  always  cheerfully 
received.     We  drank  a  good  many  toasts  before  we 
left,  and  had  our  photographs  taken  three  times.     Just 
before  the  train  started  crowds  of  gentlemen  and  ladies, 
old  and  young,  shook  hands  with  us  in  the  usual  French 
way,  with  the  left  hand  as  often  as  the  right.     One 
beautiful  and  sparkling  little  French  lady  embarrassed 
one  of  us  by  a  sudden  warm  embrace  and  a  sisterly 
kiss  on  the  cheek.     The  surprise  of  the  khaki  man  was 
only  momentary,  and  the  lady,  in  return,  was  well  and 
truly  kissed  on  the  lips.    We  were  all  sorry  to  leave 


40  A  SURGEON  IN  KHAKI 

Angers,  the  city  was  charming,  the  wine  was  excellent, 
and  the  people  were  most  entertaining. 

After  Angers  we  had  a  long  and  dreary  night  ride  to 
Le  Mans.  One  curious  incident  occurred  during  the 
night.  Our  train  was  pulled  into  a  siding  at  a  small 
station  and  held  there  for  three  hours.  At  the  end  of 
this  time  a  train,  made  up  of  forty-one  huge  locomotive 
engines,  thundered  by  at  sixty  miles  an  hour  going  south. 
We  were  told  that  these  were  Belgian  engines  sent  south 
to  escape  capture  by  the  Germans. 

In  the  cold  shiver  of  a  dark  morning  we  bundled 
out  at  Le  Mans,  and  at  once  made  a  dash  for  the  railway 
buffet  and  got  hot  coffee  and  rolls.  I  then  found  my 
way  with  some  difficulty  in  the  darkness  to  the  quarters 
of  the  A.D.M.S.,  to  whom  I  had  to  report  our  arrival. 
He  was  in  bed  when  I  arrived,  but  got  up  and  took  my 
report.  As  usual  he  was  surprised  to  know  we  were 
coming,  and  our  visit  was  naturally  an  unexpected 
pleasure.  He  told  us  that  we  should  have  gone  right 
on  to  Paris,  as  surgeons  were  badly  wanted  with  the 
army  which  was  retreating  on  to  Paris.  We  were 
always  being  told  that  doctors  were  urgently  required 
and  were  always  delayed.  We  had  definite  orders  to 
get  out  at  Le  Mans  and  report.  The  orders  were  in 
writing.  No  one  was  more  anxious  than  we  were  to 
push  rapidly  on,  and  we  chafed  at  the  continual  delays. 
The  A.D.M.S.  could  not  tell  us  when  we  would  be  able 
to  get  away  from  Le  Mans  as  the  train  service  was 
erratic.  We  were  advised  to  "  hang  about  the  railway 
station '"  till  "  some  train  "'  started  for  the  front.    As 


FROM  THE  BAY  OF  BISCAY  TO  PARIS     41 

this  was  highly  unsatisfactory,  I  tried  to  find  out  how 
matters  stood  myself. 

The  stationmaster  did  not  know  when  a  train  would 
start  for  Paris,  as  the  line  was  blocked  farther  on  by  the 
military  mobilisation.  I  found  out,  however,  that  a 
supply  train  conveying  provisions  and  supplies  for  our 
men  was  to  leave  from  Maroc  some  time  during  the  day. 
Maroc  was  a  small  siding  five  miles  from  Le  Mans. 
Here  trains  were  made  up  for  the  various  Army  Corps. 
Maroc  is  a  desert  of  sand  and  a  truly  desolate  spot. 
We  got  our  kits  and  a  box  of  medical  supplies — obtained 
with  great  difficulty  at  Le  Mans— conveyed  to  this 
miniature  Morocco,  and  we  camped  on  the  sand  under 
the  doubtful  shade  of  the  only  two  trees  the  place 
possessed,  till  4  o'clock  that  afternoon.  The  only 
excitement  was  seeing  a  huge  locomotive  run  oS  the 
track  and  block  shunting  operations  for  two  hours. 
At  last  our  huge  supply  train  was  ready.  We  all  got 
into  an  empty  guard's  van  and  disposed  our  valises  in  the 
various  corners.  Two  officers  of  the  Royal  Flying  Corps 
joined  us  here  and  found  accommodation  in  a  waggon 
loaded  with  bags  of  wheat.  We  all  clubbed  together 
for  mess,  and  laid  in  a  stock  of  sardines,  bread,  butter, 
and  a  dozen  bottles  of  red  wine  and  cider.  We  learned 
from  our  flying  friends  that  the  army  was  retiring  every 
day,  and  was  supposed  to  be  making  for  Paris. 

We  got  some  definite  news  for  the  first  time  of  our 
big  engagements  at  Mons,  Landrecies,  and  Le  Cateau, 
and  how  our  army  was  furiously  attacked  and  com- 
pelled to  fall  back,  and  that  although  the  retirement  at 


42  A  SURGEON  IN  KHAKI 

first  was  precipitate  it  soon  became  ordered  and  steady. 
We  were  also  told  that  there  were  over  15,000  casualties, 
and  that  the  medical  arrangements  had  quite  broken 
down.  However,  we  had  a  sublime  faith  in  our  own 
countrymen,  and  knew  that  they  would  come  out  all 
right,  somehow,  somewhere. 

At  daybreak  our  train  reached  Tours,  and  at  Blois 
we  had  a  welcome  wash  and  a  decent  cup  of  coffee.  Our 
quarters  in  the  guard's  van  had  been  most  cramped 
and  uncomfortable,  and  we  were  all  anxious  to  leave  the 
old  tortoise  of  a  train.  At  midday  we  passed  through 
Orleans,  and  here  French  officers  told  us  that  the 
Germans  were  advancing  on  Paris,  and  in  spite  of 
prodigious  losses  were  hacking  their  way  through  by 
weight  of  numbers  and  numberless  batteries  of  artillery. 
We  were  told  that  the  British  army  was  to  form  part 
of  the  garrison  of  Paris,  that  Paris  was  fully  prepared 
for  a  long  siege,  and  that  President  Poincare  and  the 
Government  were  at  Bordeaux.  All  these  rumours 
gave  rise  to  keen  discussions,  and  they  certainly  helped 
to  while  the  time  away  in  our  dreary  old  van. 

During  the  night  we  passed  through  Paris,  and  at 
break  of  day  pulled  up  at  the  railway  siding  of 
Coulommiers. 

The  railway  siding  was  full  of  ambulance  trains, 
British  and  French.  All  the  trains  were  filled  with 
recently  wounded  men,  and  we  got  our  first  information 
that  we  were  close  to  the  actual  scene  of  fighting.  One 
French  medical  officer  had  rigged  up  a  small  dressing 
station  on  the  station  platform.     An  upturned  box 


FROM  THE  BAY  OF  BISCAY  TO  PARIS     43 

held  his  dressings,  instruments,  and  antiseptics,  and 
he  had  about  twenty-five  wounded  Frenchmen  all 
round  him  patiently  waiting  their  turn.  Most  of  them 
were  slight  cases,  for  the  serious  ones  had  already  been 
put  aboard  the  hospital  trains. 

Coulonamiers  at  this  time  was  the  refilling  point  for 
the  Army  Service  Corps,  and  our  supply  train  was 
emptied  here. 


CHAPTER   V. 
THE  ADVANCE  TO  THE  MARNE. 

CouLOMMiERS  at  this  time  looked  a  little  bit  degage. 
It  had  been  occupied  by  the  Germans  some  days 
previously,  and  now  the  British  had  it.  The  French 
inhabitants  were  in  Paris.  The  narrow  old  streets 
looked  very  cheerful  and  inviting  when  I  passed  through, 
for  our  Army  Service  men  had  several  fires  merrily 
blazing  at  the  side  of  the  pave,  and  the  smell  of  frying 
bacon  and  roasting  coffee  beans  was  inviting  and 
appetising.  Signs  of  the  German  occupation  were 
everywhere  apparent.  Round  the  ashes  of  their  fires 
in  the  side  streets  and  square  were  the  charred  remains 
of  old  and  valuable  furniture — a  carved  leg  of  an  old 
chair,  a  piece  of  the  frame  of  a  big  mirror,  a  bit  of  a 
door,  and  so  on.  I  think  the  German  soldier  enjoyed 
the  novel  sensation  of  cooking  his  food  over  burning 
cabinets  and  tables  and  chairs  made  in  the  times 
of  the  Louis'  of  France.  Our  men  were  extremely 
careful  to  avoid  damage  to  French  property  and  made 
their  fires  of  chopped  wood  logs.  Tommy  has  good 
feelings  and  is  always  a  gentleman,  and  he  genuinely 
pitied  the  French  in  their  despoiled  towns. 

My  orders  were  to  report  to  the  Principal  Medical 


THE  ADVANCE  TO  THE  MARNE     45 

Officer  of  the  5th  Division  of  the  2nd  Army.  I  could 
not  find  out  where  the  5th  Division  headquarters  was, 
but  ascertained  that  the  2nd  Army  headquarters  was  at 
the  small  hamlet  of  Doui,  three  miles  away.  My  next 
problem  was  how  to  get  there  with  my  kit.  Luckily, 
I  found  a  motor-car  driver  about  to  start  for  the  head- 
quarters and  he  offered  me  a  lift.  This  driver  was  one 
of  the  many  gentlemen  of  leisure  who  had  volunteered 
for  service  at  the  beginning  of  the  war.  He  took  out 
his  own  car  at  first  and  it  broke  down  during  the  retreat, 
so  he  abandoned  it  by  the  roadside  and  got  another 
car,  the  driver  of  which  had  been  killed.  We  set  off 
from  Coulommiers  at  a  rattling  pace  and  passed  part 
of  the  3rd  Division  on  the  way.  The  headquarters 
of  General  Smith-Dorrien,  the  Commander  of  the  2nd 
Army,  was  a  little  cluster  of  houses  by  the  roadside, 
and  when  we  arrived  the  whole  staff  were  standing 
by  the  road,  while  the  grooms  stood  near  holding  their 
horses.  Smith-Dorrien  with  another  staff  officer  was 
poring  over  a  map  and  indicating  some  spot  on  it 
with  his  finger.  The  Principal  Medical  Officer,  Colonel 
Porter  of  the  Army  Medical  Staff,  now  Surgeon-General 
Porter,  was  just  coming  out  of  a  cottage,  and  I  walked 
up,  saluted,  and  reported  my  arrival.  The  Colonel 
gave  me  a  cheery  greeting,  asked  if  I  had  breakfasted, 
and  noticing  the  South  African  War  ribbon  on  my 
tunic,  said  that  as  I  had  seen  service  before  I  would 
soon  be  quite  at  home.  He  asked  me  where  I  came 
from,  and  when  told  that  it  was  New  Zealand,  inquired 
if  the  trout-fishing  was  still  good.     New  Zealand  seems 


46  A  SURGEON  IN  KHAKI 

to  be  principally  known  in  England  for  its  excellent 
trout  streams. 

I  was  then  told  to  report  to  the  officer  commanding 
a  section  of  the  15th  Field  Ambulance,  which  was  lying 
about  500  yards  farther  down  the  road.    I  reported 

to  Major  0 of   the  Royal  Army  Medical  Corps, 

who  told  me  that  he  was  waiting  to  evacuate  some 
wounded  to  Coulommiers  before  moving  up  to  rejoin 
the  headquarters  of  the  ambulance  which  was  ad- 
vancing with  the  15th  Infantry  Brigade.  There  were 
sixteen  wounded  British  in  a  small  farmhouse  beside 
the  road.  They  were  lying  on  straw  on  the  floor  and 
the  wounds  of  all  of  them  had  been  dressed.  When 
I  entered  they  were  drinking  milk  supplied  by  the  old 
farmer  and  his  wife.  This  old  farmhouse  had  been 
occupied  by  the  Germans  two  days  previously,  and  the 
old  farmer  brought  me  through  the  house  to  show 
what  the  Huns  had  done.  His  two  wooden  bedsteads 
had  been  smashed.  All  his  wife's  clothes  had  been 
taken  out  of  a  chest  of  drawers  and  torn  up,  and  the 
chest  had  been  battered  badly  with  an  axe.  The 
windows  were  broken  and  two  legs  of  the  kitchen  table 
had  been  chopped  off.  An  old  family  clock  lay  battered 
in  a  corner,  and  an  ancient  sporting  gun  was  broken 
in  two.  The  farmer  showed  me  one  of  his  wife's  old 
bonnets  which  had  been  thrown  into  the  fire  by  these 
lovely  Germans  and  partially  burned.  Fancy  burning 
an  old  woman's  bonnet !  All  the  fowls  and  chickens 
had  been  killed.  Two  German  soldiers  got  into  the 
fowlyard  and  struck  all  the  birds  down  with  their 


THE  ADVANCE  TO  THE  MARNE     47 

bayonets.  A  fine  Normandy  dog  lay  dead  at  the 
garden  gate,  shot  by  a  German  non-commissioned 
officer  because  the  poor  beast  barked  at  him. 

The  old-fashioned  furniture  and  adornments  of  the 
house  had  been  destroyed.  All  of  the  pictures  were 
broken  except  two — one  of  these  was  a  framed  picture 
of  Pope  Leo  xiii.,  and  the  other  was  one  represent- 
ing the  Crucifixion.  We  guessed  that  the  German 
troops  must  have  been  Bavarians,  who  are  mostly 
Catholic. 

I  have  described  this  wrecked  home  as  it  was  typical 
of  hundreds  of  others  that  I  have  seen  in  France. 
It  all  seemed  so  stupid,  so  senseless,  so  paltry,  and 
mean.  Conceive  the  frightfulness  of  burning  an  old 
lady's  bonnet  and  smashing  an  old  clock  that  had 
been  in  the  family's  possession  for  three  generations, 
and  had  ticked  the  minutes  to  the  farmer's  folk  and 
whose  face  had  been  looked  at  by  those  long  since  dead. 
The  old  farmer  was  in  tears  and  very  miserable.  He 
said  that  the  German  soldiers  were  very  drunk  and  had 
brought  a  lot  of  bottles  of  champagne  with  them, 
round  which  they  spent  a  very  hilarious  night.  One 
of  the  men  had  a  very  fine  voice  and  sang  a  German 
drinking  song,  whilst  the  others  hiccuped  the  chorus. 
There  were  certainly  a  lot  of  empty  champagne  bottles 
lying  about,  and  I  don't  think  that  the  old  farmer's 
beverage  ever  soared  above  vin  rouge,  so  the  bottles 
must  have  been  German  loot. 

About  eleven  o'clock,  while  we  were  still  waiting 
for  returning  empty  supply  waggons  to  take  off  our 


48  A  SUBGEON  IN  KHAKI 

wounded,  we  heard  that  some  German  prisoners  were 
being  marched  in.  This  caused  some  excitement,  and, 
speaking  for  myself,  I  was  consumed  with  curiosity 
to  see  some  specimens  of  this  great  German  army 
and  observe  what  manner  of  men  they  were.  Under  a 
strong  guard  of  cavalry  three  hundred  prisoners  with 
about  ten  ofi&cers  were  marched  into  a  field  close  to 
our  farmhouse.  It  was  laughable  to  see  our  old  farmer. 
He  rushed  frantically  up  the  road,  his  eyes  blazing 
with  excitement  and  joy,  and  stood  gazing  at  his 
country's  enemies  with  an  expression  of  malicious  joy 
and  delight. 

I  was  struck  with  the  appearance  of  these  prisoners. 
They  were  very  tired,  absolutely  done  in,  and  marched 
along  the  road  with  a  most  bedraggled  and  weary  step. 
Were  these  the  men  who  had  goose-stepped  through 
Belgium's  stately  capital  and  had  pushed  the  united 
armies  of  France  and  England  before  them  in  one  of  the 
most  rapid  marches  in  history  ?  They  were  utterly 
broken  down  with  fatigue,  and  their  famished  expression 
and  wolfish  eyes  betokened  the  hardships  they  had 
recently  undergone.  When  they  were  halted  in  the 
field  they  simply  rolled  on  to  the  ground  from  sheer 
exhaustion.  On  looking  closer,  however,  one  could 
see  that  they  were  fine  soldiers,  athletic,  well-built, 
lean,  wiry  fellows,  with  shaven  heads  and  prominent 
features,  slim-waisted  and  broad-shouldered,  clothed 
in  smart,  well-fitting,  bluish-grey  uniforms,  well-shod 
with  good  serviceable  boots,  each  with  a  light  water- 
bottle  clipped  to  his  belt  and  a  haversack  over  the 


THE  ADVANCE  TO  THE  MARNE    49 

shoulder;  certainly  no  fault  could  be  found  with  them 
as  specimens  of  muscular  and  active  soldiery. 

The  officers,  disdaining  to  show  fatigue,  sat  by 
themselves  in  a  group  apart  and  smoked  pipes  and 
cigarettes.  The  famished  men  were  supplied  with 
British  bully  beef  and  biscuits,  and  buckets  of  water 
were  brought  to  them  for  drink.  They  at  once  threw 
off  their  exhaustion  and  simply  rushed  the  food.  We 
realised  that  they  had  been  marched  to  a  stop,  and  that 
the  commissariat  of  that  particular  Army  Corps  must  have 
broken  down.  The  augury  was  a  good  one.  Amongst 
them  were  some  slightly  wounded  men — principally 
hand,  scalp,  and  face  wounds.  These  we  dressed,  and 
the  men  seemed  very  grateful  to  the  medical  officers 
for  what  was  done.  One  of  my  men,  with  a  slight 
shrapnel  wound  of  the  wrist,  after  I  had  dressed  and 
bandaged  it,  seized  my  hand  and  kissed  it.  That  is 
the  German  way,  perhaps,  but  un- British,  and  I  do  not 
love  things  German  or  un- British  to-day.  One  of  the 
men  had  a  slight  wound,  but  a  very  painful  one  owing 
to  a  small  shell  splinter  sticking  on  to  a  nerve.    Lieut. 

M'C administered  a  few  whiffs  of  chloroform  while 

I    extracted    the    fragment    of    iron.      Poor    M'C 

remarked  to  me  that  this  was  the  first  anaesthetic 
that  he  had  administered  during  the  war,  although 
he  had  been  through  the  whole  retreat  from  Mons, 

and  that  it  was  for  a  German.     I  say  poor  M'C ; 

this  splendid   young   doctor  was    killed  later   on  in 
Flanders   w^hile   gallantly   attending   wounded   in  the 
trenches  under  a  hellish  shrapnel  fire.     This  group  of 
4 


50  A  SURGEON  IN  KHAKI 

prisoners  belonged  to  the  Jagers  of  the  Prussian  Guard, 
one  of  the  best  infantry  units  in  the  German  Army.  We 
were  all  very  pleased  that  they  had  been  bagged,  and 
I  don't  think  that  they  worried  much  about  it  them- 
selves. The  officers,  however,  seemed  very  sullen — 
that  also  pleased  us. 

Shortly  after  the  arrival  of  the  Guard  Jagers  some 
empty  motor  supply  waggons,  returning  from  the 
front,  were  stopped.  We  packed  plenty  of  straw  on 
them  and  put  our  wounded  British  and  Germans  com- 
fortably on  top,  and  sent  them  all  off  to  the  hospital 
train  at  Coulommiers.     Then  our  commanding  officer. 

Major  0 ,  gave  the  order  to  our  ambulance  drivers 

to  harness  up  the  horses  and  prepare  to  trek.  We 
knew  that  our  army  was  making  a  stand  at  last,  and  that 
the  long  retreat  from  Belgium  was  over. 

All  the  morning  heavy  firing  was  heard  on  our  front 
towards  the  river  Marne,  and  we  were  not  sure  what 
was  happening.  We  knew  that  our  cavalry  was  at 
work  somewhere,  for  the  Guard  Jagers  had  been 
bagged  by  our  horsemen,  but  more  than  that  we  did 
not  know.  However,  we  were  soon  on  the  road,  and 
following  Napoleon's  maxim  to  his  Generals — always  to 
march  on  the  firing.  The  roads  were  terribly  dusty, 
the  day  was  hot  and  sultry,  and  a  blazing  sun  beat 
mercilessly  down  upon  us.  We  all  cursed  our  caps, 
and  certainly  the  present  khaki  cap  supplied  to  our 
officers  and  men  deserves  a  curse.  It  gives  no  pro- 
tection to  the  head  or  neck  in  summer,  and  in  rainy 
weather  it  is  soon  soaked. 


THE  ADVANCE  TO  THE  MARNE     51 

Marching  on  foot  behind  lumbering  ambulance 
waggons  on  a  dusty  road,  and  under  a  hot  sun,  is  no 
picnic.  Eyes  get  full  of  dust,  throat  gets  parched,  feet 
get  hot,  and  the  khaki  uniform  wraps  round  one  like  a 
sticky  blanket.  So  for  many  miles  we  marched,  and 
all  the  time  the  sound  of  the  guns  became  more  and 
more  distinct  and  intense.  We  passed  St.  Ouen  and 
by  St.  Cyr,  and  at  4.30  o'clock  we  seemed  to  be  in  the 
centre  of  the  artillery  thunder  area.  Great  guns  were 
screeching  and  roaring  all  round  us,  and  some  of  the 
enemy's  shells  were  bursting  to  our  left  front  near  the 
road  along  which  we  were  moving.  We  were  then  ordered 
to  pull  our  waggons  off  the  road  and  bivouac  them 
under  a  clump  of  trees  near  at  hand  in  order  to  conceal 
them  from  enemy  aeroplanes,  which  were  hovering 
high  up  in  the  blue.  The  reason  for  at  times  conceal- 
ing a  Field  Ambulance  is  that  when  a  column  is  on  the 
march  the  Field  Ambulance  has  a  definite  position  in  the 
column ;  generally  it  is  behind  the  ammunition  column. 
The  ambulance  waggons,  with  their  big  white  tented 
covers  and  conspicuous  red  crosses,  are  often  the  most 
prominent  features  on  the  road.  The  enemy  flying- 
man  when  he  sees  a  Field  Ambulance  knows  that  there 
is  at  least  a  brigade  consisting  of  four  battalions  and 
an  ammunition  column  in  front  of  it,  and  he  can  then 
direct  his  gunners  to  plant  their  shells  in  front  of  the 
ambulance  and  so  get  the  ammunition  column  and  the 
brigade.  Hence  the  necessity  for  sometimes  hiding 
the  whereabouts  of  a  Field  Ambulance. 

Aiter  we  had  bivouacked,  our  section  cook  managed 


52  A  SURGEON  IN  KHAKI 

to  light  a  file  in  a  hollow  in  a  clump  of  trees,  and  soon 
brought  us  a  much- desired  mess  of  fried  mutton,  good 
bread  and  marmalade,  and  a  can  of  tea.  We  rushed  this 
as  badly  as  the  German  prisoners  did  the  bully  beef 
earlier  in  the  day. 

It  was  an  odd  meal,  as  we  sat  by  the  roadside  viewing 
a  desperate  artillery  duel,  and  between  sips  of  tea  snatch- 
ing up  field-glasses  to  gaze  at  the  bursting  shells  on 
the  ridges  held  by  the  angry  Germans. 


CHAPTER   VI. 
WHAT  I  SAW  OF  THE  BATTLE  OF  THE  MARNE. 

In  a  battle  one  really  sees  very  little  and  knows  very 
little  of  what  is  going  on,  except  in  the  near  neighbour- 
hood. The  broad  perspective,  the  great  view  of  a 
battle,  cannot  be  seen  by  one  pair  of  eyes.  This  can 
only  be  understood  and  appreciated  afterwards  when 
facts  and  events  are  gathered  together  and  dove-tailed 
to  form  the  battle  story.  When  I  was  sitting  by  the 
roadside  on  this  August  afternoon,  amidst  the  crashing 
and  shrieking  of  the  guns,  the  bursting  of  the  shells, 
the  furious  crackling  of  the  rifles,  and  the  snarling 
notes  of  the  machine-guns,  I  guessed  that  a  battle  was 
in  progress  and  that  we  were  blazing  furiously  at  an 
enemy  who  was  blazing  furiously  back  at  us.  Beyond 
that,  I  did  not  know  very  much.  During  the 
night  I  learned  a  good  deal  more  of  the  day's 
events.  But  the  whole  story  was  not  connected  up 
till  many  days  afterwards.  I  am  quite  sure  that 
the  people  of  London  knew  more  about  the  battle  of 
the  Marne  from  the  War  bulletins  than  I  did,  although 
I  was  one  of  the  humble  units  present  in  the  actual 
fighting. 

On  this  sultry  summer  day  our  ambulance  section 

53 


54  A  SURGEON  IN  KHAKI 

was  resting  by  the  side  of  the  dusty  road  that  stretched 
in  our  rear  towards  Paris  and  on  our  front  towards  a 
lovely  green  valley  at  the  bottom  of  which  meandered 
the  river  Marne.     It  wound  its  sinuous  way  from  our 
far  right  to  our  near  left.     Directly  before  us,  and  on 
the  distant  side  of  the  river,  was  a  steep  ridge,  part  of  a 
low  chain  of  uplands  which  rolled  hazily  away  to  the 
right    and  stopped  abruptly  in  clear-cut  lines  in  our 
front.      The   road  beside  which  we  sat,  dipped  into 
the  valley  and  crossed  the  river  on  a  fine  stone  bridge 
and  continued  through  the  undulating  country  beyond 
to  the  north.     Small  villages  were  scattered  about — 
Mery  to  the  right,  Saccy  at  the  bridgehead,  and  small 
clusters  of  houses  and  farms  on  the  countryside  over 
the  river.     Some  squadrons  of  dismounted  cavalrymen 
were  standing  by  their  horses  in  a  meadow  near  the 
bank  of  the  river.     These  horsemen  had  been  busy 
earlier  in  the  day,  and  had  done  some  hard  riding, 
cutting    off    stragglers    from    the    retreating    German 
Army  Corps.     Infantry  were  hidden  from  view  in  the 
depths  of  the  valley.     Batteries  on  our  left  were  sending 
a  plunging  fire  of  shot  and  shell  on  to  the  ridge  and 
dips   beyond    the  river,   and  the  road   leading   from 
the   bridge.      With    a    field-glass,    moving   dots,    and 
what  looked  like  waggons,  could  be  made  out  on  the 
road  and  the  field  alongside.     It  was  on  these  moving 
dots  that  our  guns  played,  and  cloud-bursts  of  earth 
and   dust   showed  that    our   gunners   had   the   range 
beautifully. 

General  French  passed  us  twice  in  his  Limousine  car. 


THE  BATTLE  OF  THE  MARNE  55 

General  Smith  -  Dorrien  passed  twice  —  General  Sir 
Charles  Ferguson  passed — all  in  motor-cars  travelling 
like  mad.  Gallopers  with  messages  spurred  up  and 
down  the  road.  Guns  thundered  into  position,  un- 
limbered  and  were  quickly  in  action.  Infantry  march- 
ing rapidly  passed  down  the  road  into  the  valley  where 
a  tornado  of  rifle-fire  was  going  on.  One  could  make 
out  the  distinct  note  from  our  own  rifles  and  the  mujffled 
one  from  the  more  distant  German  Mausers.  Two 
German  shells  burst  short  of  the  battery  on  our  left  and 
uncomfortably  close  to  us.  We  were  in  an  odd  position 
for  an  ambulance — in  front  of  our  own  battery,  which 
was  pelting  shot  into  the  Germans  and  which  a  German 
battery  was  trying  to  locate.  When  the  enemy  shells 
fell  short  they  fell  near  us.  Our  position,  however,  was 
a  dress  circle  box  seat  as  a  view-point,  so  we  stopped 
where  we  were.  It  was  not  every  day  that  one  could 
look  on  at  a  real  live  battle.  Before  dusk  came  on,  an 
aeroplane  appeared  over  the  ridge  flying  towards  us,  and 
was  shot  at  by  enemy  aircraft  guns.  The  shells  burst 
all  round  it,  but  it  sailed  triumphantly  through  them 
all,  and  to  our  intense  relief  landed  safely  in  our  lines 
with  some  valuable  information. 

I  was  much  interested  to  see  our  Generals  on  this  day 
dashing  about  in  powerful  automobiles.  A  General  is. 
always  interesting  at  the  front,  be  he  a  Brigadier-General, 
a  General  of  Division,  or  an  Army  Corps  General. 
One  gets  a  fleeting  glimpse  of  a  "  Brass  Hat  "  in  a  motor- 
car and  asks,  "  Who  is  that  ?  "  Some  one  with  a  keen 
eye  or  a  nimble  fancy  will  enlighten.     "  That's  Haig, 


56  A  SURGEON  IN  KHAKI 

1st  Corps/'  or  "  Smith  -  Dorrien,  2nd  Corps/*  or 
"'  Ferguson,  5th  Division/'  "  Wonder  what's  up  ?  "  is 
the  next  usual  query,  for  a  General  moving  around 
means  that  "  something's  up." 

Smith-Dorrien  is  a  General  well  worth  seeing.  It 
was  "  S.-D/'  who  handled  the  2nd  Army  Corps 
from  Mons  during  those  terrible  hard-fought  days 
of  the  retreat,  and  he  was  now  commanding  the  3rd 
and  5th  Divisions  on  this  day  on  the  Marne,  when 
they  forced  the  passage  and  deployed  on  the  other 
side. 

When  the  action  was  at  its  hottest  and  every  gun 
was  busy,  a  car  raced  up  from  the  valley  in  a  swirling 
cloud  of  dust.  The  brakes  were  jammed  hard  down 
opposite  us,  the  side  door  opened,  and  out  stepped  a 
well-knit,  muscular,  lithe  figure,  looking  physically  fit, 
smart,  and  cool  in  a  well-made  khaki  uniform  and  red- 
banded  cap.  The  face  was  a  burnt-brick  red,  the 
moustache  white,  the  eyes  alert,  wide  open,  and  "  know- 
ing." A  savage,  obstinate,  determined  chin  dominated 
the  face.  It  was  the  chin  of  a  strong,  stubborn  nature, 
the  chin  of  a  prize  fighter.  This  was  Smith-Dorrien, 
the  commander  of  the  2nd  Army  Corps,  and  at  this 
moment  the  2nd  Corps  were  at  grips  with  the  enemy. 
With  a  few  rapid  strides  he  had  reached  the  battery 
on  our  left,  asked  some  question  of  the  battery  com- 
mander, and  at  once  clapped  field-glasses  to  his  eyes  and 
gazed  long  and  intently  at  a  spot  on  the  other  side  of 
the  valley  pointed  out  to  him  by  the  battery  commander. 
Our  party  of  officers,  filled  with  curiosity,  also  got  out 


THE  BATTLE  OF  THE  MARNE  57 

field-glasses  and  focused  in  the  same  direction.  Our 
shells  could  be  seen  bursting  on  a  far  ridge,  and  after  a 
long  stare  we  managed  to  make  out  what  we  thought 
were  some  guns,  but  we  were  not  sure.  A  few 
more  words  to  the  battery  commander,  a  careless 
salute,  and  Smith  -  Dorrien  was  back  in  his  car, 
which  was  rapidly  turned  and  disappeared  "eyes 
out  "  down  the  dusty  road  up  which  it  had  but  just 
come. 

As  the  car  disappeared  a  tremendous  rifle-fire  broke 
out  all  along  the  valley  beyond  the  stream.  It  made 
one's  pulses  beat  with  excitement.  The  2nd  Army 
Corps  was  fighting  hard  in  the  valley  at  our  feet, 
and  Smith-Dorrien  was  down  in  the  valley  with  his 
men. 

When  the  devil's  din  was  at  its  loudest,  another 
powerful  Limousine  coming  from  the  rear  pulled  up 
opposite  us.  "  Go  on,  go  on,"  shouted  a  voice  from  the 
inside,  and  the  car  again  sped  on.  Inside  was  Field- 
Marshal  Sir  John  French  poring  over  a  map  held  out 
with  both  hands  over  his  knees.  His  car  also  dis- 
appeared into  the  valley,  and  we  again  surmised  that 
there  must  be  some  big  thing  going  on  down  below  to 
draw  thither  Field-Marshals,  Corps  Commanders,  and 
Divisional  Generals. 

An  hour  elapsed.  All  of  the  batteries  except  one 
had  ceased  fire,  the  cracking  of  our  rifles  was  still  heavy 
but  more  distant,  and  now  two  cars  were  seen  coming 
slowly  towards  us  from  out  the  valley.  In  the  front 
car  were  French  and  Smith-Dorrien.    We  augured  that 


58  A  SURGEON  IN  KHAKI 

all  was  well,  for  the  car  was  proceeding  slowly,  and  the 
Field-Marshal  was  placidly  smoking  a  cigar.  Our 
augury  was  correct.  We  had  forced  the  passage  of  the 
Marne,  and  were  grimly  in  pursuit  of  the  retreating 
foe. 


CHAPTER    VII. 

THE  NIGHT  OF  THE  MARNE. 

When  the  long  day  closed  and  darkness  shrouded  us 
all,  the  firing  ceased  completely,  and  the  world  felt 
strangely  silent.  The  batteries  limbered  up  and  took 
the  road  down  towards  the  river,  and  our  ambulances 
followed  the  same  way.  The  only  sound  heard  was 
the  crunching  of  the  waggon  wheels  on  the  road.  All 
else  was  soundless  and  still,  a  great  quiet  reigned  over 
the  valley  which  a  short  time  before  had  been  so  tor- 
mented by  the  earthquake  thunderings  of  battle. 

We  went  down  deeper  and  deeper  into  the  valley, 
and  in  pitch  darkness  entered  the  quaint  old  village  of 
Saccy  on  the  Marne.  Saccy  is  an  old,  world-forgotten 
village  of  narrow  cobbled  streets  and  ancient  stone 
houses.  Situated  on  the  south  side  of  the  bridge  which 
spans  the  Marne,  the  old  village  has  ambled  sleepily 
through  the  centuries  disturbing  no  one  by  its  existence, 
and  undisturbed  itself  by  the  big  events  of  history. 
During  the  preceding  forty-eight  hours  the  old  place 
was  suddenly  engulfed  in  a  cyclone  of  movement,  for  a 
German  Army  Corps  had  retreated  rapidly  through  its 
streets  and  over  its  bridge, — too  rapidly  to  stay  and  sack 
the   houses  in  the  manner  so  loved  by  the  German 


60  A  SURGEON  IN  KHAKI 

soldiers.  Their  big  guns  had  hurtled  their  iron  messen- 
gers of  death  over  the  town  from  one  side  of  the  valley 
to  the  other,  and  sweating,  panting  British  infantry, 
the  finest  warriors  in  the  world,  had  pressed  steadily 
along  the  same  streets  and  over  the  bridge  so  lately 
trod  by  the  enemy.  Saccy  had  seen  two  armies  pass 
through  her,  and  had  emerged  safe  and  unhurt.  When 
our  ambulances  entered  Saccy  the  narrow  streets  were 
packed  and  congested  with  supply  waggons,  ammunition 
carts,  guns,  and  marching  infantry.  The  dull  lights  from 
shuttered  windows  or  an  open  door  and  the  occasional 
powerful  glare  from  a  big  motor  headlight  lit  up  a  scene 
of  cursing  drivers,  struggling  and  straining  horses,  heavy 
lumbering  waggons,  and  tired,  thirsty,  dusty  marching 
men. 

The  headquarters  of  the  5th  Division  was  estab- 
lished in  a  cafe  on  the  main  street,  and  when  we  passed 
through  the  staff  were  at  dinner  in  the  large  front  room 
opening  on  to  the  street.  We  saw  plates  of  steaming 
potatoes,  a  roast  leg  of  mutton,  bottles  of  pickles,  and 
many  bottles  of  red  wine.  The  headquarters'  cook 
was  evidently  a  man  of  resource  and  knew  his  job. 

After  passing  through  the  village  we  turned  abruptly 
to  the  right  and  then  we  were  at  the  bridge,  a  splendidly 
built  stone  affair  with  a  parapet  and  side  walks.  The 
bridge  was  fine  and  wide,  but  our  crossing  was  a  slow 
process,  owing  to  the  mass  of  waggons,  buses,  and 
equipment  ahead.  Some  artillery  and  infantry  had 
already  bivouacked  on  the  other  side  of  the  bridge,  and 
their  camp  fires  with  dicksies  of  boiling  stews  and  of 


THE  NIGHT  OF  THE  MARNE  61 

coffee  looked  very  cheerful.  Some  of  the  men  were 
sitting  or  standing  round  the  fires,  smoking  their  ever- 
popular  Woodbine  cigarettes;  others  were  engaged 
lopping  off  branches  from  the  forest  trees  for  the  fire ; 
many  had  taken  off  their  puttees,  boots,  and  socks,  and 
were  cooling  their  feet.  They  all  looked  very  happy, 
and  cheerfully  exchanged  compliments  and  remarks 
with  the  drivers  of  the  waggons,  who  still  had  some 
miles  to  go  before  they  could  rest.  Our  ambulances 
were,  however,  about  a  quarter  of  a  mile  farther  on, 
swung  up  a  narrow  cutting  into  a  field,  and  here  we 
found  the  headquarters  of  the  15th  Field  Ambulance, 
with  seven  ambulance  waggons,  supply  carts,  water 
carts,  horses,  tent  and  hospital  equipment.  When  we 
joined  up  the  unit  was  again  complete.  We  had  crossed 
the  Marne  behind  the  15th  Infantry  Brigade,  but  our 
work  was  not  yet  done. 

It  was  now  eleven  o'clock  of  a  pitch  black  night  with 
threatening  rain.  Our  ambulances  were  packed  in  a 
semi-circle  in  the  field  near  an  old  farmhouse.  A  huge 
log  fire  was  blazing  about  200  yards  away,  and  round  this 
were  sitting  some  of  the  medical  officers  of  the  ambul- 
ance and  two  chaplains.  I  made  my  bow  to  my  new 
comrades  and  introduced  myself  as  the  latest  medical 
recruit  to  the  unit,  and  was  given  a  box  to  sit  on,  and  a 
cup  of  hot  tea,  bread  and  marmalade.  All  of  these 
officers  had  been  through  Mons  and  Le  Cateau,  and  were 
now  veterans.  One  who  had  just  come  in  from  the 
front  with  some  stretchers,  said  that  our  cavalry  had 
done  splendidly  during  the  day,  and  had  made  a  very 


62  A  SURGEON  IN  KHAKI 

fine  charge,  cutting  off  some  companies  of  retreating 
infantry.  Our  Lancers  had  ridden  through  a  squadron 
of  Uhlans,  turned  round,  and  galloped  through  them 
again,  spearing  and  slaying  on  their  two  bloody 
passages. 

We  were  in  for  a  busy  night,  for  all  the  stretcher 
parties  from  the  various  ambulances  were  out  in  the 
field  collecting  the  wounded,  whose  arrival  was  expected 
now  at  any  moment.  An  operating  tent  had  been 
pitched  in  the  field  near  by,  and  was  brilliantly  lit  up 
with  a  huge  acetylene  lamp.  The  operating  table 
was  fixed  in  the  centre  of  the  tent  and  along  each  side 
were  the  instruments,  basins,  and  dressings  lying  on  the 
lids  of  the  panniers,  which  made  excellent  side-tables. 
Very  soon  the  ambulances  lumbered  up  with  the  men 
picked  up  from  the  fields  close  at  hand.  The  stretchers, 
each  holding  a  wounded  man,  were  taken  out  of  the 
waggons  and  laid  on  a  heap  of  straw  near  the  door 
of  the  operating  tent.  Sixteen  men  were  taken  out  and 
laid  side  by  side.  New  stretchers  were  put  in  the 
waggons,  which  again  set  out  to  bring  in  more  wounded. 
One  surgeon  stood  on  one  side  of  the  operating  table, 
another  stood  opposite  him,  and  a  third  surgeon  was 
ready  to  assist  or  give  an  anaesthetic  if  necessary. 

Quietly  and  quickly  one  wounded  man  after 
another  was  lifted  on  to  the  table,  his  wounds  were 
speedily  dressed,  and  he  was  again  carried  out  and  laid 
on  the  straw  with  a  blanket  below  and  another  above 
him.  Those  with  painful  wounds  were  given  hypo- 
dermics of  morphia.  All  who  were  fit  to  take  nourishment 


THE  NIGHT  OF  THE  MARNE  63 

had  hot  soup,  tea,  bread  and  jam.  Stimulants  were 
given  freely  to  those  requiring  it.  The  wounds  were 
mostly  from  shrapnel,  and  only  one  case  required  an 
anaesthetic.  He  had  a  bad  compound  fracture  of  the 
thigh  and  was  in  terrible  pain.  We  made  some  good 
splints  and  fixed  up  the  limb  comfortably  and  in  good 
position.  One  poor  devil  had  a  bad  abdominal  wound 
for  which  we  could  do  nothing.  He  was  given  a  good 
dose  of  morphia  and  slept  quietly  and  easily  till  five  a.m., 
when  he  ceased  to  breathe.  At  one  o'clock  in  the 
morning  wounded  were  still  coming  in,  and  the  surgeon 
on  duty  was  relieved  by  myself.  So  with  coat  o£E,  bare 
arms  and  covered  with  an  operating  apron,  I  did  my 
spell  of  surgical  duty  during  that  night  on  the  banks  of 
the  Marne.  Our  stretcher  parties  at  last  were  finished, 
and  had  all  come  in  with  the  report  that  all  the  wounded 
had  been  brought  in.  They  reported  that  there  were 
large  numbers  of  British  and  German  dead  on  the 
roadsides  and  in  the  fields.  At  six  o'clock  our  large  list 
of  wounded  were  sent  ofi  to  railhead  at  Coulommiers 
on  returning-empty  supply  waggons  and  under  the 
charge  of  a  medical  ofiS.cer.  The  operating  tent  was 
struck  and  all  the  panniers  and  equipment  were  packed. 
The  Field  Ambulance  had  done  its  "  job."  It  had 
followed  its  brigade  into  action,  had  collected  all  the 
wounded  of  that  brigade,  had  dressed  their  wounds 
and  made  them  comfortable  during  the  night,  and 
had  then  loaded  all  the  wounded  on  waggons  and  sent 
them  to  railhead  to  join  a  hospital  train.  Having 
done  this  the  ambulance  was  again  ready  to  follow  its 


64  A  SURGEON  IN  KHAKI 

brigade  and  do  the  same  again.     The  long  night  was 
over  and  a  new  day  was  upon  us. 

This  was  the  only  occasion  on  the  march  that  our 
Field  Ambulance  had  to  pitch  an  operating  tent  in  a 
field.  Generally  a  house  or  chateau  was  made  use  of  as  a 
dressing  station.  The  tent  made  an  excellent  first-aid 
dressing  station,  but  of  course  was  unsuited  for  any 
major  surgical  operation,  and  we  tried  to  avoid  as 
far  as  possible  doing  much  in  the  way  of  surgery. 
We  examined  every  wound  carefully  to  see  that  no 
bleeding  was  taking  place,  and  all  the  fractures  were 
very  carefully  splintered  with  firm  wooden  splints. 
The  men  suffered  very  little  pain  comparatively,  and 
were  remarkably  cheerful  when  they  had  been  dressed 
and  placed  on  the  straw.  They  seemed  anxious  to 
talk  and  review  the  events  of  the  day,  and  they  told 
us  great  tales  of  the  Germans  running  away.  One  man 
said  that  he,  with  his  company,  was  in  a  belt  of  trees 
Ijdng  down  and  watching  an  open  space  in  their  front. 
Some  Uhlans,  not  knowing  the  British  were  so  close, 
cantered  up  and  halted  ;  our  men  took  careful  aim  and 
emptied  twenty  saddles  with  the  first  fusillade,  and 
then  fired  on  the  panic-stricken,  terrified  horses  who 
were  careering  ofi  with  the  remaining  Germans ;  when 
the  horses  fell  the  riders  surrendered  at  once.  The  man 
who  told  me  the  story  was  slightly  wounded  later  in  the 
day,  and  had  a  Uhlan  helmet  as  a  souvenir  of  the  affray 
near  the  forest. 


CHAPTER   VIII. 

FROM  THE  MARNE  TO  THE  AISNE. 

At  7  a.m.  our  Field  Ambulance  was  ready  to  march. 
Breakfast  was  over,  and  we  stood  by  awaiting  orders. 
While  waiting,  some  of  us  strolled  back  towards  the 
bridge  which  we  had  crossed  the  previous  night.  It  was 
now  empty  of  men  and  vehicles.  The  ashes  of  the 
bivouac  fires  and  the  lopped  branches  of  trees  were  all 
the  tokens  left  of  the  passage  of  a  German  and  a  British 
Army  Corps.  The  Marne  is  a  deep  stream  with  a  slow 
current,  and  is  a  popular  boating  river.  Two  or  three 
boating-club  sheds  lay  pleasantly  situated  on  the  banks 
of  the  stream,  bowered  in  foliage  and  trees.  Up  and 
down  the  river  the  scene  was  exceedingly  beautiful.  It 
was  curious,  when  standing  on  the  bridge,  to  think  that 
in  the  previous  forty-eight  hours  the  tide  of  war  had 
rolled  over  this  lovely  valley ;  that  artillery  had  plastered 
the  landscape  with  shrapnel  and  high  explosives,  and 
that  riflemen  had  lined  the  banks  where  to  stand  exposed 
for  one  minute  meant  instant  death;  that  many  hundreds 
of  men  had  died  and  many  hundreds  had  been  wounded 
and  crippled  for  life.  The  ambulance  lorries  climbing 
out  of  the  valley  to  the  rear  with  the  loads  of  wounded 
men  were  the  aftermath  of  the  glitter  and  panoply 
5 


66  A  SURGEON  IN  KHAKI 

of  war,  and  of  the  deadly  struggle  in  the  now  peaceful 
valley. 

At  eight  o'clock  we  received  our  orders  to  follow 
on.  So  "  Field  Ambulance,  fall  in  !  "  and  away  we  went 
on  the  great  walk  to  the  Aisne.  At  this  time  I  did  not 
have  a  horse.  Every  ambulance  medical  officer  is 
provided  with  a  horse ;  but  horses  were  scarce  just 
then,  and  with  three  other  doctors  I  "  foot-slogged  "  the 
way.  It  was  a  beautiful  morning.  The  night's  rain 
had  settled  the  dust  on  the  roads,  the  sun  was  shining 
pleasantly,  but  drifting  rain-clouds  threatened  a  change. 

Major  B and  myself  marched  at  the  head  of  the 

column  on  foot.  Behind  marched  the  men  of  A  Company 
— ^the  stretcher-bearers  and  orderlies,  followed  by  the 
six  ambulance  waggons  of  A  Company.  Then  the  men 
and  the  waggons  of  B  Company,  followed  by  the  men  and 
waggons  of  C  Company.  Water  carts,  kit  waggons, 
supply  and  equipment  carts,  brought  up  the  rear.  Our 
personnel  was  about  250  men,  and  these  with  the 
waggons,  carts,  and  horses  made  a  fairly  long  column. 
Our  road  led  in  a  snake-like  way  through  the  gradually 
rising  uplands  beyond  the  Marne  on  to  the  plain  beyond. 
The  countryside  was  typically  French  :  clumps  of  forest 
were  on  our  right,  villages  were  dotted  about  every- 
where, and  there  were  many  isolated  farmhouses 
surrounded  by  belts  of  trees  and  orchards.  The  country- 
side was  agricultural.  The  wheat  and  oats  had  been 
cut  and  newly-made  stacks  were  standing  in  the  stubble 
fields,  and  some  of  the  fields  still  held  the  "  stooks  "  of 
grain.    About  nine  o'clock  we  came  on  the  grim  evidences 


FROM  THE  MARNE  TO  THE  AISNE   67 

of  war.  Our  road  led  right  througli  a  country  over 
which  the  Germans  were  retreating  and  we  were  pursuing. 
Two  large  motor-cars,  broken  down,  were  lying  in  a  ditch 
beside  the  road.  These  were  German  stafi  cars.  One 
had  a  badly  burst  tyre  and  that  seemed  to  be  all  that 
was  the  matter  with  it.  Farther  on  was  a  smashed 
French  ambulance  waggon,  with  a  broken  axle,  and  full 
of  equipment  and  stores,  abandoned  by  the  Germans. 
This  car  had  evidently  been  captured  from  the  French 
during  the  German  advance.  Four  German  soldiers 
of  the  Mecklenburg  Corps  were  lying  together  in  a  ditch. 
All  had  been  killed  by  shrapnel  wounds  in  chest  and 
head.  It  seemed  as  if  the  four  men  had  sat  down 
exhausted  in  the  ditch  by  the  roadside  and  that  one  of 
our  shrapnel  shells  had  burst  right  over  them,  killing 
them  all  outright.  We  removed  their  identification 
discs  in  order  that  they  could  be  sent  to  Germany  later 
on.  Close  by  was  another  dead  German  lying  face 
downwards  on  the  earth  and  with  both  hands  extended 
above  his  head.  Shrapnel  had  caught  him  full  in  the 
back  of  the  neck.  In  a  small  clump  of  trees  to  the  left 
of  the  road  were  two  more  dead  Germans.  One  was 
Ijring  on  his  back  with  his  left  hand  over  a  wound  in  the 
chest.  The  other  soldier  had  evidently  been  trying  to 
assist  him,  for  he  had  been  kneeling  on  the  right  side 
of  the  wounded  man  when  he  too  received  a  mortal  hurt 
and  fell  dead  across  his  dying  comrade.  His  head  was 
lying  in  a  deep  puddle  of  coagulated  blood.  The  rifle 
of  one  lay  some  distance  off,  evidently  violently  thrown 
away  by  the  first  man   when  he  received  his  chest 


68  A  SURGEON  IN  KHAKI 

wound.  The  rifle  of  the  other  soldier  had  been  laid 
carefully  against  a  tree  within  reach.  The  poor  fellow 
did  not  reach  out  for  it  again.  Two  young  Germans 
were  found  lying  close  together  in  a  clump  of  vegetation. 
They  had  been  sorely  wounded  and  had  crawled  of!  the 
roadside  into  the  friendly  shelter  of  the  trees.  Left 
behind  by  their  countrymen,  grievously  wounded 
and  in  dire  distress,  they  had  curled  up  together  in  the 
damp  grass  and  died  during  the  night.  One  had  died 
from  haemorrhage  and  one  from  a  brain  injury. 
Another  group  of  four  soldiers  had  crawled  into  a  ditch 
and  were  lying  close  together  in  their  last  long  sleep — 
killed  by  one  of  our  heavy  shells. 

A  small  footpath  at  one  place  ran  from  the  side  of 
the  road  towards  the  gate  of  an  orchard  of  apple  trees. 
Two  German  soldiers  were  lying  here  dead,  and  with 
their  rifles  alongside  them.  One  had  just  reached 
the  gate  and  the  other  was  close  on  his  heels  when  a 
burst  of  British  shrapnel  stopped  their  further  progress. 
Stragglers  from  the  retreating  army,  they  were  making 
for  the  orchard  to  hide  when  death  came  suddenly 
upon  them.  So  the  grim  picture  went  on.  The  German 
dead  dotted  the  roadside,  the  clumps  of  trees,  and  the 
fields  on  either  side.  Thirty  Germans  were  found  killed 
on  a  small  ridge  to  our  right.  Another  one  was  found 
alive,  but  dying.  His  wounds  were  carefully  dressed 
and  we  carried  him  into  a  neighbouring  cottage  to  die. 
Our  artillery  at  the  Marne  did  deadly  execution  and 
our  shrapnel  must  have  made  of  that  roadside  and  the 
fields  alongside  a  perfect  hell. 


FROM  THE  MARNE  TO  THE  AISNE        69 

Our  gunners  had  got  the  range  of  the  road  and 
plastered  it  and  the  adjoining  land  with  a  murdering 
hail  of  lead  and  iron.  It  was  curious  to  note  how 
badly  wounded  men  seemed  to  try  to  escape  from  the 
open  and  crawl  into  the  shelter  of  a  ditch  or  a  clump  of 
trees. 

A  man  wounded  in  the  field  would  do  as  a 
wounded  stag  or  rabbit  would, — try  for  cover. 
Some  men  died  after  crawling  away  a  few  yards. 
Some  got  some  distance  away  into  the  ditches  and 
died  there,  a  bloody  trail  marking  their  last  painful 
journey. 

The  expressions  on  the  faces  of  the  men  were  on  the 
whole  peaceful.  Some  had  a  look  of  wild  surprise  in 
their  upward,  staring  eyes.  Some  looked  as  if  a  great 
fear  and  terror  had  possessed  them  at  the  last  awful 
moment.  The  expression  on  the  face  of  one  finely 
built  German  officer,  with  a  clean-cut  intellectual  face 
and  firm  jaw,  was  that  of  a  sublime  contempt.  His 
eyes  and  nose  and  the  curl  on  his  lips  betokened  a 
contemptuous  regard  that  was  curious  to  see  in  a 
dead  man. 

One  burly  young  man  killed  by  a  shell  wound  in  the 
abdomen  had  lived  some  time  after  having  received 
his  mortal  hurt,  for  he  had  plucked  some  straw  from 
the  wheat  stack  near  which  he  lay  and  made  a  pillow 
of  it.  On  this  he  had  rested  his  head.  His  military 
cloak  lay  over  him,  pulled  tightly  round  his  neck. 
There  he  lay  with  one  hand  under  his  head  and  resting 
on  his  pillow  of  crumpled  straw,  and  the  other  hand 


70  A  SURGEON  IN  KHAKI 

pressed  on  his  wounded  abdomen  as  if  to  give  it  some 
support.  He  looked  like  a  man  sleeping  the  peaceful 
sleep  of  utter  fatigue,  and  when  painlessly  asleep  his 
heart  had  ceased  to  beat.  In  his  haversack  there  was 
a  hard  sausage  and  a  piece  of  hard  white  bread.  His 
water-bottle  was  empty  and  the  cork  had  not  been  re- 
placed, nor  had  the  bottle  been  hooked  on  to  his  belt. 
Wounded,  bleeding,  thirsty,  and  exhausted,  he  had 
slowly  crept  off  that  awful  field  into  the  friendly  shelter 
of  the  haystack. 

The  dead  Germans  were  young  sturdy  men,  strong- 
jawed  and  wiry.  This  was  no  canaille  whom  we  were 
fighting,  but  a  trained,  determined  soldiery  who  would 
fight  hard  and  die  gamely. 

Our  route  for  the  remainder  of  this  day  lay  through 
such  scenes  of  blood  and  devastation.  We  passed 
abandoned  ammunition  trains,  field  guns,  saddlery, 
field  kitchens,  and  war  equipment  of  all  sorts.  There 
could  be  no  doubt  about  the  precipitate  retreat  of  the 
Germans,  nor  of  the  tenacious  and  pressing  character 
of  the  pursuit.  Large  numbers  of  dead  horses  littered 
the  roadsides  and  fields.  Some  had  been  wounded 
or  killed  by  our  fire.  Some  lay  with  outstretched 
necks  and  open  mouths,  dead  from  exhaustion,  and 
some  had  evidently  been  shot  as  temporarily  useless 
by  the  Germans  themselves  who  did  not  wish  them 
to  remain  alive  for  the  enemy.  One  sorely  wounded 
horse  as  we  passed  tried  painfully  to  get  up.  We 
gave  him  the  merciful  dispatch  with  a  revolver 
shot. 


FROM  THE  MARNE  TO  THE  AISNE   71 

Rain  fell  heavily  during  the  afternoon  for  about 
an  hour  and  then  the  sky  cleared  again.  Continuous 
heavy  fighting  was  going  on  all  day  on  our  front  and 
flanks,  and  muffled  waves  of  artillery  bursts  could  be 
heard  from  the  far  distance.  The  whole  French  and 
British  Army  was  advancing  in  one  wide  semicircle, 
endeavouring  to  "  roll  up "  two  German  Army 
Corps. 

After  a  hard,  gruelling  march  of  twenty-two  miles 
we  reached  Chiezy.  It  was  then  pitch  dark  and  we 
were  all  exhausted,  for  we  had  been  on  our  feet  for  over 
twenty  hours,  part  of  the  time  marching,  and  part 
of  the  time  standing  by  waiting  to  go  forward.  When  a 
column  is  marching  along  a  road,  pursuing  an  enemy 
who  is  every  now  and  again  making  a  temporary  stand 
to  get  a  brigade  or  a  battalion  out  of  a  tight  corner, 
the  going  is  necessarily  slow  and  there  are  many  waits 
— sometimes  for  ten  minutes,  sometimes  for  an  hour  or 
more.  The  waits  on  the  roadside  are  really  more  tiring 
than  the  steady  marching.  When  one  is  "  soft  "  and 
not  accustomed  to  long  walking,  a  day's  march  like  this 
proves  a  torture.  If  such  a  "  tenderfoot  "  sat  down 
by  the  wayside  for  a  few  minutes,  it  was  almost  im- 
possible to  get  the  cramped  body  into  the  erect  attitude 
again.  Towards  the  end  of  the  long,  long  day,  and  in 
the  darkness  of  the  night,  with  feet  swollen  and  sore, 
brain  and  body  numbed  with  fatigue,  one  did  not 
march,  but  only  stumbled  and  lurched  along  the  never- 
ending  road  like  a  drunken  man.  A  tired  brain  induces 
muscular  fatigue,  and  physical  exhaustion  causes  mental 


72  A  SURGEON  IN  KHAKI 

torpor.  When  our  ambulances  pulled  into  the  stubble 
field  at  Chiezy,  we  had  lost  all  interest  in  the  war,  and 
in  everything  else  on  this  earth  except  a  cup  of  tea 
and  a  long  sleep. 

However,  certain  duties  had  to  be  attended  to 
before  one  turned  in.  The  horses  were  looked  after, 
the  ambulances  parked,  and  rations  served  out  to  the 
men.  We  had  about  twenty  patients,  all  of  them 
British  soldiers  with  sore  feet — men  who  had  fallen 
out  of  the  regiments  on  the  march  and  had  waited 
by  the  roadside  for  the  ambulance  waggons.  We 
always  ordered  these  poor  devils  to  jump  into  the 
waggons  and  take  off  their  boots  and  socks.  This  gave 
instant  relief.  The  sores  on  the  heels  and  across  the 
instep  were  painted  with  iodine.  In  a  few  days 
the  men  were  generally  well  and  fit  to  rejoin  their 
regiments. 

On  bivouacking  this  night  we  got  all  these  "  foot 
birds  "  to  wash  their  feet.  This  was  a  novel  experience 
to  men  who  had  marched  from  Mons  without  a 
wash  or  change  of  socks.  The  officers'  cooks  soon 
had  coffee  and  stew  ready,  and  our  servants  had 
spread  straw  on  the  ground,  on  which  our  valises 
were  um^olled.  The  night  was  beautiful ;  about 
two  miles  away  the  guns  were  booming  and  the 
bright  flashes  of  the  bursting  shells  reminded  us 
that  war  was  close  beside  us.  Without  even  taking 
off  our  boots  we  lay  down  on  our  valises  and 
were  asleep  as  soon  as  our  bodies  assumed  the 
horizontal. 


FKOM  THE  MARNE  TO  THE  AISNE   73 

At  four  o'clock  next  morning  we  were  roused  by  the 

penetrating  voice  of  the  O.C.,  Major  X .     "Turn 

out,  turn  out  !  "  There  was  no  escaping  that  voice  or 
the  caustic  remarks  that  would  be  sure  to  come  if  one 
did  not  "  turn  out/'  We  all  got  buckets  of  water,  and 
stripping  in  the  open  had  a  good  morning  bath  in 
the  buckets.  It  was  cold,  but  bracing.  Breakfast  of 
cofiee,  bread,  jam,  and  fried  bacon.  Day  broke  shortly 
afterwards  and  we  found  that  we  had  camped  on  the 
scene  of  a  struggle  of  the  previous  afternoon.  Close  by 
were  a  number  of  dead  horses  with  their  saddlery  still 
on.  Some  newly-made  graves  were  distinguished  about 
500  yards  from  our  sleeping  quarters.  A  German 
cavalry  patrol  had  been  bivouacked  near  a  wood  hard 
by  our  camping-place,  and  had  evidently  been  very 
badly  handled,  judging  by  the  signs  of  confusion,  the 
litter  left  behind,  the  dead  horses,  the  recent  graves. 
In  a  small  hollow  I  picked  up  a  very  fine  German 
saddle  and  bit,  and  a  good  waterproof  sheet.  A  bundle 
of  letters  was  Ipng  near  in  a  small  leather  satchel,  and 
on  the  cover  of  the  satchel  was  stitched  the  photograph 
of  a  very  pretty  woman's  face.  Our  O.C.  had  been 
educated  in  Germany,  and  being  a  good  German 
scholar  read  the  letters.  They  were  of  no  military 
importance,  and  had  been  sent  by  the  lady  of  the 
photograph  to  the  owner  of  the  satchel — evidently 
an  officer.  There  were  congratulations  about  his 
*'  promotion,"  and  an  earnest,  loving  message  for  his 
safe  return. 

Poor  devil !    We  surmise  that  he  must  have  been  a 


74  A  SURGEON  IN  KHAKI 

young  cavalry  officer  in  command  of  the  patrol.  His 
"  promotion  "  was  short-lived,  for  he  lay  under  one  of 
the  new  mounds  of  clay,  and  the  poor  lady  with  the 
charming  face  would  have  some  very  sad  hours 
when  she  learned  from  the  German  casualty  lists  that 

*'  Ober  Lieutenant  X was  missing."    One  of  our 

men  picked  up  here  a  very  fine  pair  of  new  German 
boots.  As  his  own  were  a  little  the  worse  for  wear 
he  put  on  the  German  ones,  and  said  that  they  were 
much  more  comfortable  than  the  British  military  boot. 
I  believe  that  his  observation  was  quite  correct. 
Amongst  other  souvenirs  picked  up  at  this  interesting 
corner  were  a  pair  of  field-glasses,  a  revolver,  a  good 
set  of  razors  and  mirrors,  an  ivory-backed  hair-brush — 
all  made  in  Germany. 

Our  greatest  find  was  yet  to  come.  As  our  ambul- 
ance was  getting  under  way  one  of  our  R.A.M.C. 
corporals  hove  in  sight  marching  proudly  at  the  head 
of  eleven  fully-armed  German  prisoners.  The  corporal's 
tale  was  full  of  interest.  He  was  searching  in  the  wood 
for  more  "  souvenirs  ''  when  he  came  suddenly  upon 
the  eleven  soldiers  lying  together  in  a  small  clearing. 
The  corporal  thought  that  his  last  hour  had  come. 
All  the  tales  of  German  atrocities  he  had  heard  unfolded 
rapidly  in  his  mind,  and  when  the  German  non-com- 
missioned officer  got  up  and  approached  him,  speaking 
German,  which  our  corporal  did  not  understand,  he 
thought  that  his  death-sentence  was  being  pronounced. 
By  signs,  to  the  utter  amazement  of  the  corporal,  he 
grasped  the  fact  that  the  Germans  wished  to  surrender. 


FROM  THE  MARNE  TO  THE  AISNE   75 

He  beckoned  the  enemy  to  follow  him,  and  the  eleven 
hungry,  tired,  and  very  dirty-looking  Mecldenburghers 
came  docilely  into  camp.  Our  O.C.  approached  them^ 
took  their  rifles,  and  ordered  them  coffee,  bully  beef,  and 
biscuits.  The  prisoners  set  to  without  delay,  and  ate 
as  only  hungry  Germans  can  eat.  Three  of  them  had 
badly  blistered  feet,  and  when  we  marched  off  these 
were  accommodated  in  the  ambulance  waggons.  The 
remainder  marched  behind  the  waggons  of  A 
Company,  under  charge  of  the  corporal  who  "  cap- 
tured "  them.  Later  in  the  day  we  handed  them 
over  to  the  Norfolk  Regiment,  as  it  was  clearly 
against  the  etiquette  of  war  for  a  Field  Ambulance 
to  have  prisoners  of  war.  We  hadn't  a  gun  amongst 
us. 

The  capture  of  eleven  prisoners  of  war  by  our  Field 
Ambulance  was  the  occasion  for  much  joy  to  our  men, 
and  the  corporal  was  a  very  proud  man.  I  don't  know 
what  the  Germans  thought  when  they  discovered  that 
they  had  surrendered  to  an  unarmed  party.  The  15th 
Field  Ambulance  is  so  far  the  only  ambulance  which 
has  taken  prisoners  of  war,  and  I  hope  that  the 
R.A.M.C.  messes  at  Aldershot  and  Netley  will  duly 
treasure  the  fact  in  the  archives. 

Rain  fell  heavily  when  we  left  Chiezy,  and  we  were 
soon  soaked  to  the  skin.  The  roads  were  quagmires 
of  greasy  and  sticky  mud,  heavy  lowering  clouds  made 
everjrthing  sombre  and  grey,  and  the  countryside 
looked  mournful  and  cheerless.  Mile  after  mile  we 
trudged  in  the  pitiless  rain.    I  shall  always  remember 


76  A  SURGEON  IN  KHAKI 

the  march  from  the  Marne  to  the  Aisne,  for  its  wet  and 
mud.  Shortly  after  leaving  Chiezy  we  came  upon 
some  gruesome  evidences  of  German  savagery.  Near 
a  stable  built  on  to  a  farmhouse  we  saw  a  Frenchman 
lying  dead  across  a  manure  heap.  The  top  of  his  head 
had  been  blown  off,  and  his  brains  were  plastered  over 
his  face.  The  man,  evidently  the  proprietor,  had 
been  shot  the  previous  day  by  a  German  officer.  There 
was  an  old  woman  at  the  farm,  and  she  told  us  this,  and 
that  she  had  seen  him  fall.  What  was  the  reason  for 
the  brutal  murder  she  did  not  know.  She  said  that 
the  officer  and  the  farmer  seemed  to  be  in  conversation 
near  the  stable,  and  the  farmer  appeared  to  be  pro- 
testing at  something.  Suddenly  the  officer  placed  the 
muzzle  of  his  revolver  close  to  the  farmer's  forehead 
and  shot  him.  The  wound  had  been  inflicted  at  close 
range,  and  we  were  filled  with  disgust  at  such  a  callous 
murder.  About  a  mile  farther  on,  we  met  another 
poor  devil  who  had  been  done  to  death.  A  middle- 
aged  man  with  a  bald  head,  bare-footed,  and  dressed 
in  an  old  pair  of  blue  pants  and  a  cotton  shirt,  was 
lying  near  a  plough  close  to  the  road.  His  head  had 
been  battered  in,  probably  with  the  butt-end  of  a  rifle, 
and  he  had  been  dead  for  about  twenty-four  hours. 
Why  the  poor  wretched  man  had  been  killed  we  did 
not  know.  The  third  instance  of  this  fiendish  villainy 
I  saw  later  on  in  the  day  at  Billy.  This  time  it  was 
a  young  man,  a  mere  youth,  and  he  lay  face  downwards 
at  the  door  of  a  cowhouse,  dead  from  a  bullet  wound 
in  the  chest.     I  examined  the  wound  with  some  care, 


FROM  THE  MARNE  TO  THE  AISNE   77 

and  would  be  quite  prepared  to  swear  in  any  court  of 
law  that  the  man  who  shot  him  had  pressed  the  revolver 
against  the  dead  man's  chest  when  he  pulled  the  trigger. 
This  is  the  German  way.  These  examples  of  nauseous 
and  disgusting  f rightfulness  amazed  me.  I  had  never 
before  come  up  against  such  tragedies,  and  I  felt  an 
unholy  pleasure  that  our  big  guns  farther  along  the 
road  were  pouring  shrapnel  and  shell  amongst  the  living 
devils  who  did  such  things. 

At    Billy  our    Brigadier- General,   Count   Gleichen, 

ordered  us  to  bivouac  for  the  night.     Major  B and 

I  billeted  in  a  small  cottage  abutting  on  a  very  smelly 
cowshed.  At  the  cottage  fire  we  dried  our  soaking 
uniforms,  and  dug  dry  underclothing  out  of  our  valises, 
which  we  spread  on  the  kitchen  floor  and  lay  upon. 
Madame  of  the  cottage  was  full  of  the  latest  war  news. 
She  was  tres  intelligente  and  very  satisfied  with  the 
progress  of  the  war.  She  told  us  that  our  advanced 
guard  had  entered  the  village  only  six  hours  behind 
the  retreating  Germans ;  that  the  Germans  were  in  a 
great  hurry  and  were  too  tired  almost  to  march  ;  that 
their  ofiicers  were  angry  and  cursed  and  struck  the 
men  who  lagged  behind.  She  also  assured  us  that 
some  Uhlans  had  ridden  through,  and  that  they 
were  very  drunk  and  had  bottles  of  champagne 
suspended  in  festoons  round  their  necks.  While  mak- 
ing some  tea,  and  boiling  eggs,  she  cheered  us  up 
with  the  assurance  that  the  war  would  soon  be  over, 
for  Monsieur  le  Cure  had  told  her  so  himself,  bless  his 
heart. 


78  A  SURGEON  IN  KHAKI 

The  Cure  opened  his  church  and  allowed  our  men 
to  carry  in  straw  and  sleep  there  for  the  night.  This 
was  a  godsend  to  our  men  during  that  night  of  pouring 
rain,  and  the  Cure  got  many  a  rough  blessing  for  his 
kind  act.  The  villagers  at  Billy  were  much  heartened 
at  seeing  the  British  so  close  on  the  German  heels, 
and  one  old  fellow — he  must  have  been  a  centenarian — 
got  very  drunk  on  the  strength  of  it  all,  and  assured 
us  that  he  was  a  veteran  of  the  soixante-dix  and  had 
killed  many  Germans  at  that  time.  He  was  too  drunk 
to  remember  the  exact  number. 

During  the  night  I  was  awakened  by  a  tremendous 
artniery  fire.  The  batteries  beyond  the  village  had 
got  the  range  of  something  and  were  giving  them 
hot  potatoes.  Madame  of  the  cottage  was  very 
alarmed,  and  thought  that  the  Germans  were 
coming  back.  Her  confidence  in  the  British  was 
not  as  firm  as  she  had  led  us  to  believe  the  previous 
evening. 

We  were  all  out  and  ready  to  march  at  five  o^clock 
next  morning,  but  did  not  move  off  till  seven  o'clock. 
Rain  still  continued  to  pour  down  and  we  were  all 
miserably  muddy  and  damp.  Whenever  a  big  artillery 
duel  took  place  heavy  rain  was  sure  to  follow.  This 
was  so  on  the  Marne  and  on  the  Aisne,  and  some  one 
with  a  meteorological  bent  had  made  the  same  observa- 
tions during  the  Peninsular  War.  All  day  long  we 
marched  or  waited  on  the  muddy,  sopping  'pave  with 
waterproof  sheets  tucked  round  our  necks  and 
shoulders,  off  which  the  water  streamed.    The  advance 


FROM  THE  MARNE  TO  THE  AISNE        79 

now  was  very  slow,  and  we  were  told  that  our  men 
ahead  were  meeting  with  a  more  organised  and  steady 
resistance.  We  no  longer  met  evidences  of  a  pre- 
cipitate retreat.  There  were  no  more  German  dead  or 
abandoned  material  by  the  roadsides. 

At  9  p.m  in  the  dark  we  entered  the  doleful  village 
of  Chacrise.    For  sixteen  hours  we  had  been  on  our 
feet  and  had  only  covered  about  eight  or  nine  miles. 
The  soft  roads,  ground  down  by  our  heavy  waggons 
and  guns,  were  in  a  bad  state,  and  we  walked  through 
ankle-deep  mud  and  slush.     When  we  entered  Chacrise 
we  were  told  that  all  the  billets  had  been  taken  up. 
The  church,  the  Mairie,  the  shops,  and  houses  were  all 
occupied  by  our  soldiers.     It  looked  as  if  we  should 
have  to  sit  all  night  on  the  cobble-stones  of  the  street, 
and  what  with  the  darkness,  the  incessant  pouring  rain, 
and  the  fatigue,  we  were  all  very  sorry  that  we  had  come 
to  France  to  fight  Germans.     But  every  cloud  has  its 
silver  lining.     We  found  an  unoccupied  house  down 
a  dark  alley.     The  windows  were  firmly  shuttered  and 
the  door  securely  locked.     The  occupants  had  locked 
up  their  house  and  bolted  when  the  Germans  were 
known  to  be  about.     By  a  little  skilful  burglary  with  a 
jemmy  we  opened  a  window.    One  of  us  got  in  and 
opened  the  front  door  from  the  inside :  very  soon  our 
cook  had  a  fire  lighted  and  a  hot  supper  ready.     We 
got  all  our  men  and  horses  under  good  cover,  and  our 
night  at  Chacrise,  which  promised  so  badly,  turned  out 
very  happily.    We  were  all  given  an  issue  of  rum  this 
night.     Rum  is  an   oily,   nauseous  drink,    but   given 


80  A  SURGEON  IN  KHAKI 

certain  surroundings  and  a  certain  physical  state  it 
has  a  most  excellent  flavour.  On  the  night  at 
Chacrise  everything  conspired  to  make  the  rum  very 
palatable. 

At  4  a.m.  next  day  our  never-sleepy  O.C.  disturbed 
our  dreams  with  his  "  Turn  out,  turn  out !  "  and  out 
we  turned.  We  had  no  choice  when  he  was  stalking 
round.  Again  we  stepped  out  on  muddy  roads,  and 
under  a  heavy  downpour  of  soaking  rain,  and  marching 
and  stopping,  reached  the  village  of  Serches  on  the 
Aisne  at  eleven  o'clock  in  the  morning.  The  rain 
then  ceased  and  a  glorious,  welcome  sun  appeared. 
The  whole  countryside  was  bathed  in  a  delightful 
warmth,  and  we  felt  glad  to  be  alive. 

We  were  ordered  to  bivouac  our  ambulances  in  a 
field  behind  the  village,  and  were  told  that  the  German 
rearguard  was  holding  up  our  advance  most  deter- 
minedly along  the  Aisne  banks,  and  that  the  enemy 
artillery  was  in  great  strength. 

Our  march  from  the  Marne  to  the  Aisne  was  accom- 
plished, and  we  now  entered  upon  a  new  and  different 
phase  of  the  great  war  game.  Our  Brigade  was  in 
action  on  the  Aisne  banks,  and  we  had  to  take  up  a 
position  behind  it  and  be  prepared  to  receive  its 
wounded  and  sick. 

The  Field  Ambulance  with  a  marching  army  takes  its 
number  from  the  Brigade  which  it  serves.  The  15th 
Field  Ambulance  followed  the  15th  Brigade ;  the 
13tli  Field  Ambulance,  the  13th  Brigade,  and  so  on. 
Four  regiments  or  battalions  form  a  Brigade,  and  all 


FROM  THE  MARNE  TO  THE  AISNE   81 

the  other  units  attached  to  the  Brigade,  such  as 
cavalry  or  ammunition  columns,  are  also  medically 
attended  by  the  Field  Ambulance  attached  to  their 
Brigade. 

Our  Brigade  consisted  of  the  Norfolks,  Cheshires, 
Bedfords,  and  Dorsets,  and  the  Brigadier  was 
Major-General  Count  Gleichen,  now  a  General  of 
Division. 

It  was  from  these  regiments  that  we  received 
most  of  our  casualties  on  the  Marne,  on  the  Aisne, 
and  later  at  La  Bassee,  and,  as  the  following  few 
notes  will  show,  we  were  serving  with  regiments  who 
had  proved  themselves  doughty  warriors  in  the 
past. 

The  Norfolk  Regiment  was  created  in  1685  in  the 
time  of  the  Stuarts  to  help  suppress  the  rebellion  of 
Monmouth.  Their  badge  is  the  figure  of  Britannia, 
well  won,  in  1707,  for  their  gallant  bearing  at  Almanza. 
This  great  regiment  has  done  sterling  service  in  many 
lands,  and  has  as  battle  honours,  Roleia,  Corunna, 
Peninsula,  Sevastopol,  Afghanistan,  and  South  Africa. 
Their  nicknames  are  three,  "  The  Holy  Boys," 
"  The  Fighting  Ninth  "  (they  were  formerly  called 
the  9th  Regiment  of  Foot),  and  the  "  Norfolk 
Howards." 

The  Bedfordshire  Regiment,  with  its  badge  of  the 
united  red  and  white  rose,  and  its  battle  honours  with 
the  proud  names,  Blenheim,  Ramillies,  Chitral,  was  a 
magnificent  unit  in  France  when  we  joined  it.  The 
regiment  had  been  raised  in  the  last  years  of  James  ii. 


82  A  SURGEON  IN  KHAKI 

in  1688,  and  from  1809  to  1881  was  known  as  the 
IGth  Eegiment  of  Foot.  The  nicknames  of  the  regi- 
ment are  "  The  Peacemakers/'  "  The  Featherbeds/' 
"  The  Bloodless  Lambs/'  This  regiment  lost  heavily 
at  Missy  on  the  Aisne,  and  at  Ypres  later  on  in  the  war 
it  had  over  650  casualties. 

The  Cheshires,  with  a  united  red  and  white  rose 
for  a  badge  like  the  Bedf ords,  were  raised  in  1689,  and 
were  in  old  days  the  22nd  Regiment  of  Foot.  Their 
war  record  includes  Martinique,  Hyderabad,  Scinde, 
and  South  Africa,  and  their  nicknames  are  "  The  Two 
Twos,"  "The  Red  Knights,"  and  "The  Lightning 
Conductors  " — when  marching  in  Ireland  about  fifteen 
years  ago  the  regiment  was  struck  by  lightning.  The 
Cheshires  have  suffered  terribly  during  this  war,  and 
at  Missy  we  had  a  number  of  their  casualties  to  treat, 
and  many  were  buried  near  the  old  village  on  the 
Aisne. 

The  Dorsetshire  Regiment  has  a  proud  motto, 
"  Primus  in  Indis,"  commemorating  its  great  services 
in  India,  and  the  fact  that  it  stands  first  in  order  of 
precedence  amongst  British  regiments  that  have  seen 
war  there.  The  drum-major  of  this  regiment  still 
carries  the  staff  of  the  Nawab's  herald  on  parade. 
It  was  captured  at  Plassey,  where  the  regiment  was  in 
action  under  Clive. 

Sir  Horace  Smith-Dorrien,  Commander  of  the  5th 
Division,  "  particularly  mentioned  the  fine  fighting  of 
the  Dorsets.  They  suffered  no  less  than  400  casualties. 
Their  Commanding  Officer,  Major  Roper,  was  killed, 


FROM  THE  MARNE  TO  THE  AISNE        83 

but  all  day  they  maintained  their  hold  on  Pont  Fixe." 
Their  battle  story  is  a  great  one,  and  includes  Plassey, 
Albuera,  Vittoria,  Sevastopol,  and  Relief  of  Ladysmith. 
The  1st  Battalion  was  raised  in  1702.  The  "  Green 
Linnets  "  is  their  nickname. 


CHAPTER   IX. 

TlIE  AISNE  AND  THE  TRAGEDY  OF  THE  SUNKEN  ROAD. 

On  arriving  at  Serches  on  the  Aisne  our  ambulance 
pulled  off  into  a  sloping  grassy  field,  and  the  tired 
horses  were  taken  out,  fed,  and  rubbed  down.  Fires 
were  lit  and  we  all  prepared  to  enjoy  ourselves  by 
resting  in  the  glorious  sun's  rays,  washing,  shaving, 
and  smoking  a  pipe  in  comfort.  For  the  past  few 
days  we  could  not  smoke  in  the  open  owing  to  the 
rain. 

A  tremendous  artillery  engagement  was  going  on  at 
the  front.  Our  batteries  were  posted  behind  a  long 
ridge  not  far  from  where  we  were,  and  every  gun  was  in 
action,  making  the  air  resound  with  the  bursting  charges. 
It  was  not  by  any  means  a  one-sided  affair,  as  we  were 
soon  to  know.  The  enemy  were  firing  from  a  ridge  on 
the  other  side  of  the  river,  and  they  had  got  our  positions 
very  accurately.  At  one  o'clock  a  Taube  flew  over  our 
position  and  dropped  three  bombs.  Two  fell  near  us 
with  a  terrible  clatter,  one  on  the  road  to  our  left  down 
which  we  had  come,  and  one  about  400  yards  behind  us 
in  a  belt  of  trees.  The  third  one  actually  fell  in  our 
field,  and  plunged  itself  angrily  into  the  soft  turf.  Our 
position  was  obviously  not  a  safe  one  for  a  Field  Ambul- 


THE  TRAGEDY  OF  THE  SUNKEN  ROAD  85 

ance,  and  we  got  orders  to  retire  two  miles  farther  back. 
We  did  not  move  off,  however,  till  5  p.m. 

Major  B and  I  walked  through  the  village  of 

Serches  and  turned  up  the  road  leading  to  the  right 
behind  a  steep  ridge  which  flattened  out  into  a  plain  of 
about  one  to  two  miles'  width.  This  plateau  fell  abruptly 
on  its  northern  side  right  on  to  the  Aisne  River.  When 
climbing  up  this  road,  which  led  to  the  summit  of  the 
ridge,  we  passed  numerous  stretcher-bearers  bringing  in 
wounded  to  the  13th  Field  Ambulance,  which  was  also 
quartered  in  the  village.  The  men  with  slight  hand 
or  head  wounds  were  walking,  and  the  serious  cases 
were  on  stretchers.  The  Germans  had  got  the  range 
of  the  ridge  summit  towards  which  our  road  led, 
and  were  freely  plastering  it  with  shrapnel  and  Black 
Marias. 

On  approaching  the  top  of  the  rise  we  saw  two  of  our 
batteries  on  our  right,  and  three  on  our  left  well  forward 
in  the  plateau,  and  busily  engaged.  Our  guns  at  this 
date  were  not  concealed  from  inquisitive  Taubes  by 
trees  and  foliage — that  lesson  had  not  yet  been  learned 
by  the  conservative  Briton.  German  shells  were 
bursting  on  the  ridge  in  good  line  for  our  guns,  but  about 
a  quarter  of  a  mile  short.  Our  road  now  took  a  direct 
turn  for  the  far  side  of  the  plateau,  and  here  it  went 
through  a  deep  cutting  down  to  a  bridge  which  spanned 
the  river.  On  the  left-hand  side  of  the  road  at  the 
cutting  there  was  a  large  gravel  pit  or  cave  where  road- 
metal  was  obtained.  The  road  across  the  plateau  was 
open  and  exposed,  but  from  the  cutting  to  the  banks  of 


86  A  SURGEON  IN  KHAKI 

the  river  it  was  lined  with  pine  trees.    Major  B and 

myself  were  standing  on  the  road  at  the  top  of  the  ridge 
trying  to  make  out  the  German  positions  with  our  field- 
glasses.  A  gunner  ofiicer,  seeing  the  red-cross  brassards 
on  our  arms,  hurried  up  and  said,  "  You  are  urgently 
wanted  in  the  sunken  road  about  a  mile  and  a  half  down. 
Two  doctors  have  just  been  killed  and  there  are  a  lot  of 
badly  wounded  on  the  road.'^  We  had  no  dressings  of 
any  sort  with  us.  We  had  come  thus  far  out  of  curiosity, 
not  expecting  that  it  was  such  a  "  hot  corner.''  We, 
however,  went  forward  at  the  double  along  this  exposed 
road,  passing  upturned  waggons,  dead  and  dying  horses, 
khaki  caps  and  overcoats,  overturned  and  smashed 
water  carts.  Out  of  breath,  we  reached  the  cave  and 
found  how  urgently  necessary  we  were.  The  scene 
defied  description.  The  cave  was  a  shambles  of 
mangled  forms.  Nineteen  wounded  men  were  lying  in 
the  loose  sandy  gravel,  having  just  been  brought  in  by 
their  surviving  uninjured  comrades.  One  was  on  the 
point  of  death  from  a  shrapnel  wound  of  the  brain — ^the 
bullet  had  passed  through  the  orbit.  There  were 
fractured  limbs,  shrapnel  wounds  of  the  chest,  abdomen, 
and  head,  shell  wounds  and  concussions.  We  did 
all  we  possibly  could  with  first-aid  di-essings.  We  got 
the  uninjured  men  to  take  off  their  puttees,  and  these  we 
used  as  bandages  ;  rifles  were  employed  as  splints  for  the 
lower  limbs,  and  bayonets  for  the  upper  limbs.     One 

poor  officer.  Captain  and  Quartermaster  M ,  an  old 

soldier  with  two  rows  of  ribbons  on  his  coat,  had  a  badly 
shattered  thigh  and  knee.     He  was  suffering  tortures, 


THE  TRAGEDY  OF  THE  SUNKEN  ROAD  87 

and  his  anguished  face  showed  the  strong  efforts  he  made 

to  control  himself.     Lieut.   W ,  R.A.M.C.,   a   civil 

surgeon,  had  a  smashed  ankle-joint.  We  sent  at  once  for 
ambulances  and  stretcher  parties.  These  soon  arrived, 
and  the  terribly  wounded  men  were  conveyed  to  the 
Field  Hospital  which  had  just  been  arranged  at 
Serches. 

Poor  Captain  M— —  died  that  night,  and  was  buried 
near  a  stone  wall  in  the  garden  at  the  old  farmhouse  of 
Mont  de  Soissons,  and  the  doctor  had  to  have  his  leg 
amputated  later.  He  was  a  very  plucky  man.  Even 
when  wounded  and  lying  in  helpless  pain,  he  gave  in- 
structions about  the  other  wounded  men. 

After  the  wounded  were  sent  away  I  walked  a  few 
yards  down  the  road  to  the  place  of  the  disaster.  Here 
was  a  scene  of  ghastly  horror.  On  the  road  lay  mangled 
and  bleeding  horses,  dead  men  lying  in  all  sorts  of 
convulsed  attitudes,  upturned  waggons,  smashed  and 
splintered  wood.  Add  to  this  the  agonised  groans  of 
our  wounded  men,  the  shrill  scream  of  dying  horses, 
and  that  impalpable  but  nevertheless  real  feeling  of 
standing  in  the  face  of  the  Creator — one  can,  perhaps, 
then  feebly  picture  this  scene  of  carnage,  of  the  solemnity 
of  death,  and  of  the  pitiless  woe  of  this  devastation. 
Where  could  one  find  here  a  trace  of  the  glory,  pomp, 
and  magnificence  of  war  ? 

The  story  of  the  incident  is  one  not  uncommon. 
A  party  of  men  of  the  West  Kents  were  sitting  by  the 
roadside  beyond  the  cutting,  having  a  meal  of  bully 
*beef  and  biscuits.    As  they  were  eating,  a  cavalry  ambul- 


88  A  SURGEON  IN  KHAKI 

ance  came  up  from  the  bridge  over  the  Aisne.    When 
the  ambulance  was  abreast  of  the  West  Kents,  a  German 
battery  landed  a  Black  Maria  on  the  ambulance,  and  at 
the  same  moment  shrapnel  burst  right  amongst  them 
all.     The  heavy  explosive  and  the  shrapnel  did  terrible 
execution.     Captain  F ,  R.A.M.C,  was  killed  out- 
right, the  other  doctor  was  badly  hurt.     Eight  men  of 
the  West  Kents  met  instantaneous  death  ;  eight  horses 
were  killed,  and  three  horribly  mangled  and  flung  off  the 
road  by  the  violence  of  the  explosion.     On  examining 
these  dead  men  on  the  road  it  was  noticeable  that  they 
had  all  received  a  multiplicity  of  wounds.     One  man, 
a  burly  sergeant-major,  had  a  big  hole  in  his  head,  an- 
other huge  hole  in  his  neck,  a  lacerated  wound  of  the 
chest,  and  one  boot  and  foot  blown  completely  away. 
All   had   widely   open   staring   eyes.     The   expression 
seemed    to    be    one    of    overwhelming    surprise    and 
horror. 

Poor  fellows  !  Their  moment  of  surprise  and  horror 
must  indeed  have  been  brief,  for  death  is  dealt  out  at 
these  times  with  a  lightning  flash. 

In  describing  events  in  this  war  one  unconsciously 
has  to  turn  to  superlatives.  "  Devilish,  hellish,  bloody, 
awful,  and  terrible  "  are  words  that  come  most  trippingly 
to  the  tongue.  This  war  is  superlative  in  all  its  moods 
and  tenses.  Superlative  in  the  number  of  men  engaged, 
in  the  extent  of  the  battle  front,  in  the  duration  of  the 
battles,  in  the  misery  it  is  causing  and  has  caused,  in 
the  awful  loss  of  life,  in  the  mutilating  wounds  caused  by 
the  shrapnel,  in  the  number  of  the  missing,   in  the 


Gun  teams  at  thk  Maknk. 


ThIC    WAV    TO    THE    SINKEN     KOAD. 


THE  TRAGEDY  OF  THE  SUNKEN  ROAD  89 

atrocities,  inhumanities,  and  blasting  cruelties  of  the 
enemy,  and  in  theii*  wanton  destruction  of  all  that  is 
sacred  and  revered. 

"Few  few  shall  part 
Where  many  meet.' 


CHAPTER  X. 

MISSY  ON  THE  AISNE. 

We  left  Serches  at  5  p.m.  and  retraced  our  road 
for  about  two  miles  till  we  reached  the  ancient  Chateau- 
farm  of  Mont  de  Soissons.  This  historic  farm  was  our 
headquarters  during  September  and  till  the  date  we 
left  in  October  1914,  and  it  was  during  this  eventful 
period  that  all  the  great  stirring  events  "  on  the  Aisne  " 
took  place.  "  On  the  Aisne/'  how  much  of  tragedy 
and  pathos,  of  great  deeds,  of  gallant  deaths,  stubborn 
fighting,  and  indomitable  courage  are  associated  with 
those  words  ? 

On  the  night  after  our  arrival  at  Mont  de  Soissons, 
the  ambulance  officers  were  sitting  about  eleven  o'clock 
round  a  table  in  the  old  dining-room  of  the  Chateau, 
when  an  urgent  order  arrived  from  headquarters  to 
send  doctors,  stretcher-bearers,  and  ambulance  waggons 
with  equipment  to  Missy.  The  orders  were  for  the 
ambulances  to  get  to  Missy  in  the  dark,  pick  up  the 
wounded,  and  at  all  costs  to  come  out  again  in  the 
dark.  To  get  to  Missy,  which  was  situated  on  the  far 
side  of  the  Aisne,  we  would  have  to  cross  the  river,  and, 
— reading  between  the  lines  of  this  definite  order  to  get 
in  under  cover  of  darkness  and  get  out  again  in  the 


MISSY  ON  THE  AISNE  91 

dark, — one  could  see  that  our  night  ride  was  to  be  a 
somewhat  perilous  one. 

Section  C,  the  section  to  which  I  was  attached, 
was  ordered  to  undertake  the  task,  and  at  twelve  o'clock, 
on  a  pitch-dark  rainy  night,  our  section  was  ready  to 
move  off.     We  had  five  waggons,  with  the  complete 

personnel  of  one  section.    Major  B was  in  command, 

with  Lieutenant  I and  myself  as  the  other  medical 

officers,  and  with  us  Monsignor,  the  Catholic  chaplain 
attached  to  our  field  ambulance,  also  came  as  a 
volunteer.  Monsignor  was  the  salt  of  the  earth,  and 
whenever  he  thought  that  he  could  be  of  service  to  our 
wounded  men  he  was  there.  There  was  no  demand 
on  him  on  this  wild  rainy  night  to  leave  the  comfortable 
shelter  of  the  farmhouse  and  voyage  out  towards  the 
enemy  lines ;  but  he  had  a  strong  sense  of  duty,  and 
behind  the  priest  there  was  more  than  a  sowpgon  of 
the  knight-errant,  who  warmed  at  the  thought  of  a 
dangerous  adventure. 

We  were  not  permitted  to  light  our  waggon  lamps, 
and  in  the  darkness  we  rumbled  off,  anxious  not  to  lose 
any  time  over  our  mission,  and  if  possible  complete  it 
under  cover  of  darkness. 

Misfortune  dogged  us  from  the  start.  We  had  but 
one  map ;  and  as  nobody  could  give  us  any  directions, 
that  was  our  only  guide.  We  mapped  out  the  route, 
Mont  de  Soissons  to  Serches — Serches  to  Venizel  on  the 
banks  of  the  Aisne,  where  was  the  bridge  by  which 
we  were  to  cross  the  river — Venizel  to  Bucy  le  Long,  and 
thence  to  Missy.    Altogether,  we  reckoned  that  we  had 


92  A  SURGEON  IN  KHAKI 

7  or  8  miles  at  least  to  go ;  but  it  proved  to  be  a 
"long,  long  way  to  Tipperary/' 

After  being  five  minutes  on  the  march  we  dis- 
covered that  we  were  on  the  wrong  road,  and  it  took 
twenty  minutes  to  turn  the  waggons  on  the  narrow, 
muddy  jpave  and  get  on  again.  Passing  through 
Serches,  we  turned  to  the  left  and  followed  the  road 
through  a  valley  leading  to  the  banks  of  the  Aisne. 
Here  again  we  were  nearly  off  on  a  wrong  road,  and 
lost  about  another  twenty  minutes  righting  ourselves. 
The  country  was  intersected  with  roads  not  indicated 
on  our  map.  We  now  got  on  to  a  narrow  road  dipping 
sharply  down  towards  a  clump  of  trees,  and  here  one 
of  our  waggons  slipped  over  the  embankment,  and  one 
of  the  horses  was  killed.  We  could  not  get  the  waggon 
up  again,  so  abandoned  it  and  pushed  on  with  our 
remaining  four  waggons,  water  cart,  and  supply  waggon. 
The  loss  of  this  waggon  was  a  serious  blow  to  us,  as 
events  will  show. 

As  we  entered  the  forest  we  were  challenged  by  a 
sentry  of  the  Cameron  regiment,  who  passed  us  on. 
A  Cameron  officer  met  us  here  and  told  us  that  we  were 
going  into  a  bad  place,  as  late  that  afternoon  he  had 
lost  some  men  from  shrapnel  at  the  very  spot  where 
we  then  were.  Progress  was  very  slow  for  the  next 
500  yards,  as  the  road  was  barricaded  with  felled  trees, 
and  trenches  had  been  dug  alongside.  After  negotiating 
this  nasty  corner  we  got  on  quickly  to  Venizel. 

We  reached  Venizel  right  on  the  banks  of  the  Aisne, 
and  learned  to  our  chagrin  that  the  fine  stone  bridge 


MISSY  ON  THE  AISNE  93 

had  been  destroyed  by  the  German  artillery  that  day. 
The  engineers  with  superhuman  energy  had  just  about 
completed  a  pontoon  bridge.  We  were  kept  waiting 
here  for  an  hour.  Then,  one  waggon  at  a  time,  we  got 
across.  The  bridge  was  very  doubtfully  lit  at  either 
end  by  darkened  lanterns,  and  one  seemed  to  be  very 
close  to  the  swift  current  of  the  Aisne,  already  in  flood. 
At  the  far  side  of  the  bridge  our  progress  was  again 
very  slow  for  some  time,  as  we  had  to  meander  gingerly 
between  the  trenches  dug  for  the  men  who  were  holding 
the  bridge-end.  As  we  left  the  pontoon  an  optimistic 
engineer  lieutenant,  in  clothes  dripping  with  water, 
cheerfully  called  out  "  Good  luck,  Hope  you  get 
back  all  right."  In  reply  we  warned  him  that  he 
would  get  pneumonia  if  he  didn't  change  his  clothes, 
and  that  it  was  foolish  to  take  baths  in  the  Aisne  with 
a  uniform  on. 

Our  road  lay  now  along  a  flat  plain,  curving  to  the 
right.  The  night  was  very  dark  and  ominously  silent. 
Our  men  were  forbidden  to  talk  or  smoke  cigarettes,  as 
we  were  approaching  the  enemy  lines.  Reaching  Bucy 
le  Long,  we  inquired  the  way  from  a  Scottish  officer 
who  was  standing  near  a  stone  well  on  the  village  street. 
All  his  men  were  alert  and  under  arms  and  expecting 
an  attack  at  any  moment.  The  officer,  speaking  with 
the  good  Doric  accent,  indicated  our  way  and  told  us 
to  hurry  on  and  get  under  cover,  as  Missy  was  very 
"  nasty  "  just  then  and  they  expected  a  German  attack. 

We  realised  by  this  time  that  we  might  get  into 
Missy  in  the  dark,  but  by  no  possibility  could  we  bring 


94  A  SURGEON  IN  KHAKI 

the  wounded  out  in  the  dark ;  and  by  the  serious  prepara- 
tions for  repelling  an  attack  in  the  village  street  we 
knew  that  we  could  not  get  out  in  daylight.  It  looked 
as  if  we  were  soon  to  be  in  the  thick  of  that  most 
sanguinary  of  all  forms  of  war — street  fighting. 

So  on  we  went,  and  after  taking  another  wrong 
turn  and  losing  another  half -hour  we  got  on  to  a  straight 
road  leading  direct  to  Missy.  It  was  extraordinarily 
difficult  to  find  one's  way,  as  the  night  was  dark  and 
everything  was  strange  and  unfamiliar.  There  seemed 
to  be  hundreds  of  roads,  and  the  greatest  care  had  to 
be  exercised  ;  for  a  wrong  turning  would  land  us  very 
speedily  in  the  German  lines,  and  none  of  us  wished 
our  expedition  to  end  in  an  inglorious  pilgrimage  to 
Germany. 

As  the  first  doubtful  streaks  of  dawn  appeared  we 
reached  Missy. 

The  main  street  of  the  village  was  full  of  men  of 
the  Norfolks  and  Cheshires,  all  up  and  armed,  and 
awaiting  the  Germans.  There  had  been  a  very  hot 
skirmish  outside  the  village  on  the  previous  afternoon, 
and  the  Norfolks  and  Cheshires  had  lost  heavily.  It 
was  the  wounded  from  this  melee  that  we  were  to  get 
to.  A  cheery  Norfolk  sergeant  directed  us  down  a 
small  lane  to  the  right  of  the  street,  telling  us  that  there 
were  a  lot  of  badly  hit  men  somewhere  at  the  bottom 
of  the  lane.  The  lane  was  too  narrow  to  admit  of  our 
ambulances,  so  they  were  parked  in  front  of  a  baker's 
shop  and  the  horses  were  taken  out.  We  hurried  down 
the  lane  and  found  the  wounded  men. 


MISSY  ON  THE  AISNE  95 

Dawn  was  breaking  and  shafts  of  grey  light  and 
shadow  were  thrusting  through  the  darkness.  Then, 
like  a  clap  of  thunder,  the  German  batteries  opened 
up,  and  from  that  moment  till  nightfall  we  lived 
through  one  of  the  most  hellish  artillery  duels  that  any 
mortal  man  could  imagine.  A  tornado  of  shot  and  shell 
swept  across  that  beautiful  Aisne  valley.  It  seemed 
as  if  all  the  fiends  of  hell  were  let  loose.  The  noise  was 
deafening,  ear-splitting,  the  bursting  of  the  shells,  the 
mighty  upheavals  of  earth  where  the  shells  struck,  the 
falling  trees,  falling  masonry,  crashing  church  steeples, 
the  rolling  and  bounding  of  stones  from  walls  struck 
by  these  titanic  masses  of  iron  travelling  at  lightning 
speed,  the  concussion  of  the  air,  the  screeching,  whisking, 
and  sighing  of  the  projectiles  in  their  flight,  made  an 
awful  scene  of  destruction  and  force.  Add  to  all  this  the 
snarling,  typewriter  note  of  the  Maxims,  the  angry  phut 
of  the  Mauser  bullet  as  it  struck  a  house  or  a  gate,  and  the 
crackling  roars  from  our  Lee-Metfords — truly  it  was  the 
devil's  orchestra,  and  the  devil  himself  was  whirling  the 
fiery  baton.  The  steeple  of  the  village  church  was 
struck  fairly  by  a  German  shell,  and  with  a  mighty 
crash  the  stones  were  hurled  madly  on  to  the  road 
down  which  we  had  but  just  passed,  and  killed  one  of 
our  horses.  Another  shell  plunged  right  into  the  old 
church  and  sent  its  roof  in  a  clattering  hail  over  the 
surrounding  houses.  A  stone  house  at  the  top  of  our 
alley-way  got  another  shell  and  was  levelled  to  the 
ground,  killing  two  women  who  were  inside.  The 
corner  of  the  building  in  which  we  were  located  was 


96  A  SURGEON  IN  KHAKI 

struck  by  a  passing  shell  and  a  huge  hole  was  ripped 
out    of   the  solid  masonry.     Shrapnel  burst  over  the 
house,  in  the  garden  in  front,  on  the  doors  of  the  house, 
on  the  roof,  and  down  the  alley.     Our  red  cross  flag 
and  Union  Jack  were  badly  holed  with  shrapnel.    At 
the  kitchen  door  a  large  piece  of  shell  fell,  sending  mud 
and  gravel  against  the  windows  and  into  the  room.     A 
railway  line  ran  past  the  foot  of  our  garden,  and  stretch- 
ing from  this  railway  line  to  the  banks  of  the  Aisne  in  the 
distance  was  a  wide  grassy  meadow  on  which  some 
cows  were  grazing.     A  thicket  of  tall  trees,  surrounding 
a  small  farmhouse,  was  situated  to  the  right  of  the 
meadow.     This  house  was  the  headquarters  of  Count 
Gleichen,  the  commander  of  the  15th  Brigade.     The 
Germans  evidently  were   aware  of  this  fact,  for  the 
first  shots  they  fired  at  break  of  day  were  at  this  house. 
We  could  plainly  see  one  shot  fall  short  of  the  house, 
but  in  a  straight  line  for  it.     The  second  shot  we  thought 
had  really  got  the  house,  but  fortunately  this  was  not  so. 
It  landed  near  the  door,  as  we  learned  later.     After  this 
shot   the   headquarters  galloped   off  as  hard  as  they 
could  go,   and   the   enemy  tried  to   reach  them  with 
shrapnel,  but  without  success.     Alongside  the  railway 
line  there  was  a  line  of  trenches,  and  every  inch  of  that 
line  seemed  to  have  been  covered  during  the  day  by  the 
German    fire.       Their   artillery  practice   was   perfect, 
and  at  this  period  of  the  war  the  enemy  artillery  mightily 
outclassed  ours.     Our  guns  from  the  ridge  on  the  other 
side  of  the  Aisne  made  but  a  feeble  reply  to  the  terrific 
German  bombardment. 


MISSY  ON  THE  AISNE  97 

Now  for  the  story  of  our  wounded  at  Missy.  When  we 
got  down  our  alley  at  dawn  on  this  eventful  morning  we 
found  eighty-four  grievously  wounded  men.  In  a  little 
stone  f owlhouse  to  the  left  of  the  alley,  fourteen  men  were 
lying  packed  close  together.  There  was  no  place  to  put 
one's  foot  in  trying  to  walk  over  them.  To  the  right  of 
the  alley  a  gate  opened  into  a  gravel  yard  of  a  fine 
two-storied  stone  house,  a  very  old  and  solidly  built 
building.  The  house  formed  three  sides  of  a  square ;  a 
beautiful  flower  garden  with  a  rose  pergola  formed  the 
fourth  side.  The  gravel  yard  was  in  the  centre.  The 
lower  story  of  this  building,  with  the  exception  of  the 
kitchen  and  an  adjoining  room,  consisted  of  stables, 
granaries,  saddlery  rooms,  and  coachhouse.  Lying  on 
the  floors  of  the  stable,  kitchen,  etc.,  were  wounded 
men.  They  had  all  been  wounded  the  previous  evening 
in  an  attack  on  the  enemy  concealed  in  a  wood.  The 
wounded  in  the  small  fowlhouse  were  carried,  under 
shrapnel  fire,  across  the  alley  to  the  big  house  and  placed 
in  the  room  adjoining  the  kitchen  and  in  the  saddlery 
room.  The  cooks  made  up  a  big  fire  and  soon  had  hot 
water  boiling.  The  three  medical  officers  were  soon 
rapidly  at  work.  The  fiirst  case  attended  to  was  that 
of  a  young  soldier  of  the  Norfolks  who  had  been  struck 
by  a  shell  in  the  abdomen.  His  intestines  were  lying 
outside  the  body,  and  loops  were  inside  the  upper  part 
of  his  trousers.  Under  chloroform  we  did  what  we 
could.  He  died  painlessly  four  hours  afterwards. 
There  were  many  bad  shell  wounds  of  the  head ;  one 
necessitating  a  trephining  operation.  One  poor  fellow 
7 


98  A  SURGEON  IN  KHAKI 

had  his  tongue  half   blown   ofi.     The  loose  bit   was 
stitched  on.     The  compound  fractures  were  numerous 
and  of  a  very  bad  type,  associated  with  much  shattering 
of  the  bone.    Four  men  died  during  the  day,  but  our 
arrival  and  timely  help  undoubtedly  saved  many  men. 
We  made  the  poor  fellows  as  comfortable  as  we  could, 
and  we   were  incessantly  busy  from   the  moment  we 
entered   this   blood-stained   place.     I    personally   shall 
never  forget  the  sight  of  these  poor,  maimed,  bleeding, 
dying  and  dead  men  crowded  together  in  those  out- 
houses, with  not  a  soul  near  them  to  help,  and  I  am  more 
than  thankful  that  I  was  privileged  to  be  of  service  and 
to  employ  my  professional  skill  to  help  them  in  their 
dire  hour  of  need.    We  knew  that  we  were  in  a  tight 
corner.    We  expected  that  at  any  moment  we  would 
be  all  blown  to  pieces ;  we  did  not  know  how  we  were 
to  get  these  men  back  to  our  own  lines ;  but  we  knew 
also  that  whatever  happened  we  would  stand  by  our 
helpless  countrjrmen  to  the  last,  and  if  we  failed  to  get 
them  safely  back  it  would  not  be  our  fault.     I  men- 
tioned previously  that  when  our  ambulance  got  orders 
to  go  to  Missy,  Monsignor,  the  Roman  Catholic  chaplain, 
volunteered  to  come  with  us.     It  is  difficult  to  attempt 
to  write  of  our  brave  Monsignor.    He  was  the  bravest 
of  the  brave.    When  the  three  medical  officers  were 
working  hard  with  the  wounded — dressing,  operating, 
anaesthetising — Monsignor  was  very  busy  too.     He  made 
hot  soups,  hot  coffee,  prepared  stimulating  drinks,  set 
orderlies  to  work  to  see  that  every  man  who  could  take 
nourishment  got  it.    One  man  injured  in  the  mouth  could 


MISSY  ON  THE  AISNE  99 

swallow  only  with  the  greatest  difficulty.  Monsignor 
patiently  sat  by  this  man,  and  one  way  or  another  with 
a  spoon  managed  to  give  him  a  pint  of  hot  Oxo  soup 
and  a  good  stiff  nip  of  brandy.  This  splendid  prelate 
carried  straw  with  his  own  hands  and  made  pillows 
and  beds  for  our  men.  He  took  off  boots  and  cut  off 
bloody  coats  and  trousers  in  order  to  help  the  work 
of  the  surgeons.  He  rummaged  in  a  cellar  in  the  house 
and  discovered  a  box  of  apples.  These  he  cut  into 
slices  for  our  men.  He  stood  by  our  dying  men  and 
spoke  words  of  cheer  and  comfort  to  the  poor  helpless 
fellows.  He  was  absolutely  reckless  about  himself. 
Exposed  to  shrapnel  and  shell  fire  many  times  during 
the  day,  he  was  too  busy  attending  to  the  wounded  to 
think  about  anything  else.  Towards  dusk,  when  our 
work  eased  off,  we  collected  some  pieces  of  shell  which 
fell  near  him — as  souvenirs.  I  looked  at  Monsignor 
many  times  during  the  day,  and  was  struck  with  his 
expression  of  content  and  his  happy  smile.  He  was 
exalted  and  proud  and  happy  to  be  where  a  good  priest, 
— and  what  a  good  priest  he  was ! — could  be  of  such 
great  service.  I  am  not  a  Catholic,  but  I  honour  the 
Church  that  can  produce  such  a  man  as  Monsignor,  and 
I  very  greatly  honour  Monsignor. 

As  darkness  came  on  the  hellish  artillery  fire 
quietened  down  and  then  ceased  altogether.  The  rifle- 
firing  continued  intermittently  for  a  little  while  longer 
and  then  it  too  ceased.  We  were  now  "  up  against  " 
the  last  and  greatest  trial  of  all — the  evacuation  of  our 
wounded.     During  the  day  some  more  wounded  men 


100  A  SURGEON  IN  KHAKI 

had  43rawled  into  us,  and  we  had  now  102  men  to  bring 
back  to  our  lines.  We  managed  in  the  darkness  to  get 
two  large  French  country  carts  to  act  as  ambulances. 
Our  four  ambulance  waggons  were,  of  course,  not 
enough,  and  even  with  the  help  of  the  country  carts 
we  could  not  accommodate  102  wounded  men.  Every 
man  wounded  in  the  head  or  arms  who  could  walk, 
was  told  off  to  march  with  our  stretcher-bearers.  We 
packed  the  wounded  lying  -  down  cases  into  the 
ambulance  waggons  and  on  to  the  country  carts. 
Plenty  of  straw  had  previously  been  placed  in  these 
latter.  We  were  compelled  to  load  up  our  waggons 
and  carts  far  too  heavily,  but  our  position  was  a  serious 
one ;  we  had  to  get  the  wounded  out  somehow,  and  we 
had  no  one  to  help  us.  Our  troops  had  retired  from 
Missy  during  the  day  and  we  were  left  all  alone  in 
front  of  the  Germans  and  quite  at  the  mercy  of  their 
guns.  The  via  dolorosa  of  our  sorely  wounded  was 
on  this  night  a  very  pitiable  one.  Exposed  to  rain, 
lying  in  the  utmost  discomfort,  compelled  to  keep  for 
hours  a  cramped  position,  they  deserved  our  pity. 
The  wounded  men  who  had  to  march  were  also  in  a 
sorry  plight.  These  poor  fellows  were  not  fit  to  march  ; 
weak  with  shock,  pain,  and  loss  of  blood,  they  ought 
all  to  have  been  in  bed ;  yet  they  had  to  march,  for  we 
could  not  leave  them  behind. 

At  last  all  was  ready  to  start.  Strict  orders  were 
given  against  lights  and  cigarettes.  No  talking  was 
allowed^  for  the  Germans  were  just  "  over  the  way,'* 
and  they  are  people  with  "  long  ears." 


MISSY  ON  THE  AISNE  101 

Before  setting  out  we  buried  four  officers  and  five 
men  in  a  grave  by  the  railway,  near  the  bottom  of  the 
garden.  This  mournful  duty  over,  the  ambulance 
moved  off. 

This  time  we  anticipated  no  delay,  as  we  knew 
the  road — vain  hope.     The  night  was  again  very  dark, 
and  a  drizzle  of  rain  was  falling.     We  had  just  emerged 
from  the  silent  village  on  the  road  to  Bucy  le  Long 
when  the  inl^y  blackness  of  the  night  was  cut  through 
by  the  powerful  beam  of  a  searchlight  played  from 
the  German  lines.     The  light    swept   slowly  up  and 
down  our  column  in  a  zig-zag  wave  once,  and  then  a 
second  time,  this  time  more  slowly  still.     Every  detail 
was  illuminated  with  the  brilliant   glare.     The  light 
was  then  fixed  ominously  on  our  front  waggon,  which 
had  a  big  red  cross  painted  on  its  canvas  sides.     The 
column  kept  moving  slowly  on,  but  for  ten  minutes 
that  sinister,  baleful  light  played  all  round  the  first 
ambulance.     We  all  thought  that  our  last  hour  had 
come — ^that  after  going  through  such  a  hellish  day  in 
the  farmhouse  at  Missy  we  were  to  be  finally  scuppered 
on  the  muddy  road.    We  knew  that  the  Germans  were 
only  about  800  yards  away.     With  strained  nerves  we 
waited,  expecting  them  to  turn  a  machine-gun  on  us. 
The  searchlight  played  up  and  down  the  column  once 
more  and  then  was  turned  in  another  direction.     My 
impression  is  that  the  Germans  made  out  the  red  cross 
on  the  leading  waggon  and  so  let  us  pass.     If  they 
wished  they  could  have  destroyed  us  easily.     We  all 
breathed  again  and  continued  on  our  way.    After  passing 


102  A  SURGEON  IN  KHAKI 

through  Bucy  le  Long,  where  we  again  saw  our  soldiers, 
we  came  across  some  returning-empty  motor  lorries. 
We  placed  all  our  marching  wounded  on  to  these  and 
eased  of!  the  pressure  in  the  country  carts  by  taking  of! 
a  few  men.  At  Venizel  we  were  held  up  for  five  hours. 
The  pontoon  bridge  had  given  way  during  the  day 
under  the  weight  of  a  piece  of  heavy  French  artillery. 
The  gun  had  been  fished  out  from  the  bottom  of  the 
Aisne  with  great  difficulty,  but  the  horses  were  drowned. 
The  Engineers  were  straining  every  nerve  to  repair 
the  bridge.  It  was  vitally  important  to  hurry,  as  this 
bridge  was  the  only  artery  of  communication  between 
our  advanced  troops  and  the  ammunition  supplies. 
At  last  we  got  across  and  reached  Mont  de  Soissons, 
our  ambulance  headquarters,  at  nine  in  the  morning. 
The  wounded  were  handed  over  to  the  other  medical 
officers.  Men  and  officers  were  completely  done  up. 
We  had  been  marching  during  two  anxious,  harassing 
nights,  and  had  lived  through  a  bad  day,  but — we  got 
out  our  wounded. 


CHAPTER   XL 

ON  THE  AISNE  AT  MONT  DE  SOISSONS. 

Our  Field  Ambulance  headquarters  at  the  Chateau- 
farm  of  Mont  de  Soissons  was  occupied  by  us  till  October. 
During  this  time  our  army  was  fighting  hard.  Most  of 
the  days  were  rainy,  and  the  trenches  on  the  other  side 
of  the  river  suffered  from  this.  To  our  right  was 
Braisne  on  the  river,  and  to  our  far  right  was  Reims. 
To  our  left  was  Soissons — about  eight  miles  away. 
We  were  about  fifty-eight  miles  from  Paris. 

Our  billet  was  a  good  one.  Imagine  a  huge  hollow 
square  surrounded  by  stone  buildings,  and  the  square 
itself  filled  with  an  enormous  manure  heap.  One  side 
of  the  square  was  taken  up  by  the  two-storied  old 
stone  building  containing  kitchen,  hall,  sleeping- 
rooms,  and  offices.  Stables  for  sheep,  cows,  and 
horses  formed  two  sides.  The  fourth  side  was  a 
truly  beautiful  and  artistic  one.  It  was  formed  by 
a  wonderful  old  chapel,  and  remains  of  what  was  part 
of  the  refectory  and  cellars  of  a  monastery.  These 
buildings  were  in  a  splendid  state  of  preservation,  and 
were  now  used  to  hold  straw  and  cattle  fodder.  The 
chapel  had  been  built  by  the  Knights  Templars,  and  was 
in  its  day  a  place  of  renown.     It  is  indeed  a  pity  that 

103 


104  A  SURGEON  IN  KHAKI 

such  historic  buildings  are  so  neglected  and  forgotten. 
In  the  lofts  of  the  dwelling-house  and  in  a  shed  outside 
we  put  our  sick  and  wounded  men.  In  a  bedroom 
downstairs  we  put  the  wounded  officers.  We  were 
principally  concerned  at  this  time  in  the  transportation 
of  sick  and  wounded  to  railhead.  Although  we  were 
at  headquarters  of  an  ambulance,  no  preparation  or 
effort  was  made  for  any  special  treatment.  Very  few 
of  our  cases  remained  more  than  twelve  to  twenty-four 
hours.  Motor  lorries  arrived  at  Mont  de  Soissons 
every  morning,  and  on  these  our  men  piled  straw  and 
placed  the  men,  covering  all  with  a  huge  tarpaulin 
cover  raised  tent  fashion  on  upright  sticks.  This 
method  of  transporting  wounded  was  crude  and  brutal. 
There  were  no  motor  ambulances  at  this  time.  The 
first  motor  ambulance  arrived  after  we  had  been  ten 
days  at  Mont  de  Soissons.  Why  motor  ambulances 
were  not  with  us  from  the  beginning  of  the  war  is  a 
question  which  the  Army  Medical  Department  will 
have  to  answer  when  the  war  is  over,  and  the  necessary 
public  washing-day  arrives. 

Several  wounded  men  and  officers  died  at  Mont  de 
Soissons  and  were  buried  in  the  garden  alongside  a 
stone  wall.  Wooden  crosses  mark  each  grave-head, 
and  two  of  them  have  stone  crosses  erected  and  en- 
graved by  one  of  our  orderlies.  And  the  women  of  the 
house  and  neighbourhood  attend  to  the  graves,  and  place 
flowers  on  them.  It  is  beautiful  to  see  how  reverently 
the  French  women  look  after  our  soldiers'  graves.  The 
old  lady — ^the  owner   of   this   farm-chateau — has   the 


AT  MONT  DE  SOISSONS  105 

names  and  dates  of  burial  of  all  officers  and  men  in- 
terred in  this  garden,  and  the  relatives  of  these  dead 
heroes  will  be  able  one  day  to  visit  this  quiet  corner  of  a 
garden  in  France  and  will  see  how  beautifully  the 
graves  have  been  tended  by  the  simple,  kindly  French 
peasant  women. 

Our  life  at  this  place  was  full  of  interest.  In  front 
of  us  were  our  own  batteries,  behind  the  ridge ;  then 
beyond  was  the  river,  and  beyond  that  our  advanced 
troops  in  the  trenches.  To  our  left,  the  French 
occupied  Soissons.  The  French  artillery  was  continually 
in  action,  pounding  on  every  day  sans  cesse  and 
generally  also  through  the  night,  and  it  was  excellent 
and  well  served  ;  but  our  guns  were  silent  most  of  the 
day.  At  eleven  o'clock  in  the  morning  they  would 
open  up  and  leisurely  plunge  their  shot  across  the 
valley  at  Fort  Conde  for  half  an  hour ;  then  remain 
silent  till  four  or  five  in  the  evening,  when  another 
bombardment  would  commence  and  continue  till  dark. 

Occasionally  they  seemed  to  wake  up  and  become 
very  angry,  and  on  these  occasions  would  bark  and  roar 
and  screech  for  a  couple  of  hours.  The  Germans  never 
refused  an  artillery  duel,  and  when  our  batteries  seemed 
to  wake  up  the  Germans  did  too,  and  hurtled  across 
their  shot  at  a  tremendous  pace.  The  Germans  at 
this  time  wasted  an  enormous  lot  of  ammunition,  but 
they  nevertheless  were  extraordinarily  formidable  and 
effective  with  this  arm.  There  was  a  small  embank- 
ment outside  our  farmhouse,  and  this  was  a  box  seat 
de  luxe  every  afternoon  from  four  till  half-past  six 


106  A  SUEGEON  IN  KHAKI 

o'clock.     On  our  right,  stretching  on  to  Reims,  and 
on  our  left  towards  Soissons,  the  artillery,  German, 
French,  and  British,  was  then  at  its  best.     Sometimes 
the  sound  would  be  deafening  all  along  the  line,  some- 
times  it   would  concentrate   itself    in   our   particular 
corner.     Directly  opposite  us,  on  the  far  side  of  the 
river  at  Fort  Conde,  the  Germans  had  a  very  strong 
artillery  position.     Their  guns  there  outranged  ours  at 
first,  and  used  on  fine  evenings,  at  the  usual  concert 
hour,    to   give   us    some    splendid    exhibitions.     First 
would  come  one  shot  to  the  right,  and  then  one  to  the 
left.     Then  four  flashes  of  yellow  flame  followed  by 
huge  cascades  of  earth  would  appear  to  strike  the  same 
spot,  and  a  few  seconds   after  the  dub-dub-dub-dub 
of  the  explosions  would  reverberate  and  re-echo  across 
the  hills  and  valleys.     They  would  sometimes  pick  out 
one  particular  area  of  ground  on  our  front  and  simply 
cover  every  yard  of  it  with  bursting  shells.     At  other 
times  they  would  plant  a  line  of  shells  right  across  a 
particular  place.     Again  they  seemed  sometimes  to  go 
"  shell  mad,'"  and  would  wildly  send  shells  to  all  points 
of  the  compass.     In  the  darkness  of  an  autumn  night 
the  bursting  of  the  shells  was  a  terribly  magnificent 
sight.     We  could  see  our  shells,  and  especially  the  French 
shells,  burst  over  the  German  positions.    The  French 
artillery   always   excited   our   admiration.     The   great 
guns,  the  men,  the  rapidity  of  fire,  the  noise,  and  the 
terrible    bursting    charges    were    all    wonderful.     No 
wonder  France  is  proud  of  her  big  guns  and  her  splendid 
gunners. 


AT  MONT  DE  SOISSONS  107 

About  ten  o'clock  in  the  mornings  we  frequently 
were  surveyed  by  Taubes.  Many  of  them  were  most 
daring.  They  were  always  pursued  by  our  men  and 
the  French  ;  and  wonderful  pursuits  and  flights  were 
witnessed.  Two  of  our  aeroplanes  often  started 
together  after  a  Taube.  One  would  fly  directly  for  the 
enemy  craft,  and  one  would  circle  into  the  upper  blue 
and  try  to  get  above  it.  We  were  told  that  they 
used  to  fire  at  one  another  with  carbines,  but  we  never 
could  hear  the  shots  or  see  any  smoke.  The  Taube 
always  made  ofl.  Sometimes  a  Taube  would  be  up 
alone,  and  after  hovering  and  circling  over  our  gun 
positions  would  make  a  sudden  dash  to  directly  above 
a  battery,  drop  a  smoke  signal,  and  fly  away ;  this  signal 
would  be  rapidly  followed  by  some  German  shelling. 
The  greatest  spectacular  effect  of  all  was  to  watch 
the  German  shots  from  their  anti-aircraft  guns  bursting 
round  our  aeroplanes.  It  was  like  pelting  a  butterfly 
with  snowballs.  We  could  see  the  burst  and  flash 
long  before  the  sound  reached  us.  The  bursts  pro- 
duced white  and  black  smoke  balls,  the  black  one 
appearing  a  little  higher  and  later  than  the  white. 
The  white  smoke  balls  um'olled  themselves  into  a 
curious  shape,  very  like  a  big  German  pipe.  There 
was  a  huge  bulb  and  a  long,  curling,  thick  stem.  We 
stood  often  with  "  our  hearts  in  our  mouths  "  expecting 
that  one  of  our  daring  flyers  had  been  hit.  Smoke-biu'sts 
would  appear  below,  above,  and  round  the  craft,  and 
then  one  shot  would  seem  to  actually  hit  it.  But  no  ; 
a   minute  afterwards   we  could   make   out  the  little 


108  A  SURGEON  IN  KHAKI 

machine  flying  higher  or  emerging  swaggeringly  from 
the  midst.  We  watched  our  own  bursts  round  a  Taube 
with  a  different  spirit,  waiting  eagerly  for  the  coup  de 
grace,  and  having  no  humane  thoughts  for  the  daring 
pilot.  One  afternoon  we  were  certain  that  a  Taube  had 
been  struck,  for  one  burst  appeared  to  be  right  on,  but 
when  the  smoke  cleared  away  the  Taube  was  still 
going  merrily.  Then  it  began  to  slowly  descend,  then 
ascend  again,  and  then  suddenly  plane  away  to  our 
right.  From  the  last  shot  she  really  had  "  got  it  in  the 
neck,"  as  Tommy  Atkins  puts  it,  and  the  machine 
plunged  down  behind  the  French  lines.  The  pilot  was 
killed,  the  observer  got  a  fractured  spine,  and  was 
dragged  out  of  the  wreckage — paralysed. 

On  the  19th  September,  orders  from  General  French 
were  read  out  congratulating  the  British  troops  upon 
their  valour  and  tenacity  at  the  Marne,  and  commending 
their  courage  on  the  Aisne.  We  were  assured  that  by 
holding  on  to  our  present  positions  the  enemy  would 
be  forced  to  retire. 

On  one  Sunday,  service  was  conducted  by  Monsignor, 
our  Catholic  chaplain,  for  Catholic  soldiers,  in  one  of 
the  stable  lofts  at  the  farm.  The  preacher  and  the 
men  had  to  climb  up  a  ladder  placed  on  the  outside  of 
the  building,  and  get  into  the  loft  through  a  small  door. 
The  ladder  was  a  crazy  affair,  but  Monsignor  tested  it 
by  going  up  first.  He  was  a  light-weight  and  very 
active,  but  a  burly  Falstaffian  sergeant  looked  very 
hesitatingly  at  it,  and  it  certainly  creaked  and  bent 
considerably   as   he    slowly   mounted.     The   loft    was 


AT  MONT  DE  SOISSONS  109 

packed  with,  men,  and  we  heard  afterwards  that  the 
floor  was  not  meant  for  a  heavy  weight.  We  were 
relieved  to  learn  that  there  were  no  casualties  at  the 
service,  and  that  Monsignor  and  his  flock  had  not 
gone  through  the  floor  and  startled  the  horses  under- 
neath. 

I  spent  one  forenoon  in  an  advanced  artillery 
observation  post,  and  tried  to  make  out  the  German 
positions  through  a  telescope.  We  could  make  out 
some  white  waggons  moving  on  a  road  far  off,  but  they 
were  out  of  range.  The  observation  officer  got  to  his 
post  by  walking  up  a  cutting  and  then  crawling  into  a 
hole,  and  there  he  stood  for  hour  after  hour  patiently 
watching  the  other  lines,  while  his  sergeant  sat  close  by, 
well  concealed,  and  with  a  telephone  receiver  over  his 
head.  Any  observations  of  importance  were  'phoned 
back  to  the  battery.  These  observation  posts  were 
dangerous  "  spots,"  for  they  were  well  within  the  reach 
of  enemy  shells  and  afforded  very  little  cover.  The 
observation  officer  here  was  an  enthusiast,  and  I  think 
he  was  familiar  with  the  outline  of  every  tree  and  rock 
on  the  other  side.  It  requires  some  practice  to  be 
really  expert  with  a  telescope.  General  officers 
occasionally  came  up  to  talk  to  our  observer  and  peer 
at  the  opposite  ridge.  I  met  this  artillery  observation 
officer  later  on  in  the  north  of  France,  and  this  time  he 
was  a  patient  in  hospital  with  a  scalp  wound.  He 
had  been  in  a  house  well  in  advance  of  our  own  advanced 
line,  and  had  made  a  small  hole  in  the  roof  through 
which  he  obtained  a  good  view  of  the  enemy  disposi- 


no  A  SURGEON  IN  KHAKI 

tions,  and  directed  the  fire  of  his  battery.  The  German 
is  a  wily  man,  and  evidently  did  not  like  the  position 
of  this  house,  for  he  shelled  it  out  of  existence.  I  was 
glad  that  the  major  got  out  with  nothing  more  than  a 
scalp  wound,  for  good  artillerists  are  worth  much  to  our 
army  to-day.  Our  artillery  officers  seem  to  enjoy  war 
more  than  any  other  branch  of  the  service.  This  major 
told  me  that  one  day  his  own  and  a  French  battery 
got  fairly  on  to  a  German  battery  that  had  done  con- 
siderable damage.  The  Allied  guns  destroyed  the 
Germans,  and  the  French  were  frantically  delighted, 
their    colonel    coming    over    and    warmly    embracing 

Major  X and  kissing  him  on  both  cheeks.    We  told 

the  major  that  he  was  a  certain  starter  for  the  Legion 
of  Honour.  The  major  was  a  happy  man  when  he  was 
standing  in  a  hole,  or  peering  round  a  piece  of  rock, 
telescope  to  eye,  and  a  sergeant  lying  near  him  with  a 
telephone  receiver  strapped  on  his  head. 

One  afternoon  on  the  Aisne  we  heard  that  the 
Norfolks,  who  were  in  the  trenches  on  our  front,  were 
hugely  delighted.  They  had  just  killed  a  sniper.  This 
particular  sniper  had  become  notorious,  for  he  was  a 
dead  shot  and  had  hit  many  of  the  Norfolk  boys. 
Owing  to  the  vigilance  of  this  particular  sniper  they 
could  not  get  hot  tea  into  the  trenches,  and  several  of 
the  Norfolk  "  Bisleys  "  were  keenly  anxious  to  bag 
him.  One  day  a  tree  was  observed  to  rustle  after  a 
sniping  shot,  and  at  once  the  Norfolks  sent  a  hail  of 
bullets  into  that  particular  tree.  This  brought  the  man 
down,    for    winged    by   Norfolk  bullets   the   arboreal 


AT  MONT  DE  SOISSONS  111 

Prussian  fell  out  of  the  branches  like  a  ripe  acorn, 
amidst  the  cheers  of  the  men  in  the  trenches. 

It  was  said  that  these  snipers  on  the  Aisne  belonged 
to  the  Forest  Guards,  who  were  rangers  in  the  Imperial 
forests  of  Eastern  Prussia,  and  were  dead  shots, 
accustomed  all  their  lives  to  shoot  wild  pigs  and 
wolves.  They  were  highly  unpopular  amongst  our 
men. 

Sniping  is  quite  in  accordance  with  the  rules  of 
war,  but  the  soldiers  feel  that  sniping  as  the  Germans 
play  it  is  not  "  cricket."  They  naturally  feel  very 
angry  with  a  sniper  who  gets  up  a  haystack  with  some 
provisions  and  ammunition,  and  after  having  eaten  all 
his  food  and  fired  off  all  his  cartridges  calmly  emerges 
and  surrenders. 

Our  men  are  extraordinarily  good  to  wounded 
Germans  and  to  prisoners,  but  these  sniping  sneaks  stir 
their  venom  and  ire.  I  saw  one  of  these  surrendered 
uninjured  snipers  at  Ypres  meet  with  savage  scowls  and 
epithets  from  some  men  of  a  company  whose  officer 
had  been  killed  by  him  that  morning. 

About  the  last  week  of  September  I  brought  over 
some  motor  ambulances  full  of  sick  men  to  Braisne. 
This  charming  little  town,  situated  on  the  Aisne  and  on 
the  Marne  Canal,  was  full  of  ambulances  and  clearing 
hospitals.  Every  house  almost  had  a  red-cross  flag  up, 
for  the  place  was  crammed  with  sick  and  wounded,  and 
the  clearing  hospitals  had  been  very  busy  with  the  big 
casualties.  Three  doctors  had  been  killed  a  few  days 
previously  at  Vailly  when  in  action  with  their  regiments. 


112  A  SUEGEON  IN  KHAKI 

and  another  doctor  had  died  the  next  day  after  having 
had  his  leg  amputated  for  a  bad  shell  wound.  He  was 
awarded  the  V.C.,  but  did  not  live  to  enjoy  that  signal 
honour  and  distinction. 

The  clearing  hospitals  and  ambulances  were  sending 
large  numbers  of  sick  soldiers  down  to  the  base  en 
route  for  England — mostly  cases  of  dysentery,  lumbago, 
and  rheumatism.  Many  of  these  men  looked  bad 
wrecks,  and  no  wonder,  when  one  remembers  the 
rapid,  arduous  retreat  from  Mons  and  Le  Cateau  in 
the  broiling  summer  heat,  followed  by  the  hard  fighting 
and  marching  in  the  rain  from  the  Marne  to  the 
Aisne,  and  how  this  was  succeeded  by  the  hardships, 
miseries,  and  discomforts  in  the  wet  sodden  trenches 
at  a  time  when  it  was  impossible  to  give  them  hot 
cooked  food  and  sufficient  warmth.  More  men  were 
wanted,  and  until  they  arrived  the  few  had  to  do  the 
work  of  many.  The  5th  Division  had  been  promised 
a  rest  in  reserve  to  recuperate,  but  not  a  man  could  be 
spared  from  the  line  we  were  so  hardly  holding,  and  so 
they  simply  had  to  "  plug  on,''  and,  as  cheerfully  as  they 
could,  sing  "It's  a  long,  long  way  to  Tipperary  "  ;  but 
they  did  not  sing  much  at  this  time. 

While  we  were  at  Mont  de  Soissons  and  a  week  after 
the  arrival  of  our  first  red-cross  motor  ambulances, 
we  were  given  instructions  to  look  out  for  a  mysterious 
red-cross  motor-car  driven  by  an  officer  in  khaki  who 
had  a  beard  and  wore  a  red-cross  brassard  on  his 
arm.  This  car  seemed  to  be  very  busy  and  was  con- 
stantly travelling  up  and  down  the  roads  and  always 


AT  MONT  DE  SOISSONS  113 

at  high  speed — too  high  a  speed  to  be  challenged. 
Sitting  at  the  front  of  the  car  and  next  the  driver 
was  a  nurse,  dressed  in  nurse's  uniform,  wearing  a  white 
cap,  and  also  with  a  red-cross  brassard  on  the  left  arm. 
We  smelt  something  fishy  about  it  all.  Firstly,  none 
of  our  medical  officers  wore  beards;  secondly,  medical 
officers  did  not  drive  motor  ambulances  about ;  thirdly, 
there  were  no  nurses  with  us.  Nurses  are  not  allowed 
in  the  fighting  line.  We  watched  for  this  car  always, 
and  always  wondered  what  we  would  do  if  we  did 
sight  it,  for  none  of  us  had  arms,  and  this  villain  with 
the  beard  would  be  sure  to  have  a  loaded  six-shooter 
near  at  hand.  Two  days  after  our  warning  the  car  was 
spotted  by  a  sentry,  who  challenged,  but  the  driver  went 
furiously  past  him.  He  was  not  out  of  the  bush  though, 
for  a  barricade  had  been  erected  half-way  across  the 
road  at  a  very  sharp  turn,  and  to  get  round  this  the  car 
had  to  slow  down  to  "  dead  slow."'  A  British  sentry 
was  here,  and  other  soldiers  were  standing  not  far  away. 
The  bearded  driver  was  ordered  to  stop  and  get  out 
under  cover  of  the  sentry's  rifle.  The  guard  came  up 
and  the  two  motorists  were  arrested. 

The  man  with  the  beard  was  a  German  spy  right 
through,  and  he  was  handed  over  to  the  French,  who 
shot  him  at  daybreak  next  day.  They  say  he  died 
very  gamely. 

The  "  nurse  "  who  sat  beside  him  was  not  shot.  We 
were  told  that  "  she  "  was  really  a  man,  a  dapper  little 
German  waiter  who  had  been  on  the  stafE  of  a  leading 
hotel  in  Paris  for  some  years.     I  saw  the  man  with  the 


114  A  SURGEON  IN  KHAKI 

beard  shortly  after  lie  was  arrested.  He  looked  quiet 
and  scholarly  and  somewhat  meek,  but  "  still  waters 
run  deep." 

At  4  a.m.  on  the  27th  of  September  we  were  all 
"  turned  out  "  by  our  O.C.,  who  had  just  received  urgent 
orders  to  be  prepared  to  leave  Mont  de  Soissons  as  the 
Germans  *'  were  over  the  river."  After  standing  by  for 
two  hours  we  got  word  that  it  was  a  false  alarm.  Some- 
thing had  been  irritating  the  Germans  this  morning, 
for  at  daybreak  they  opened  a  furious  fire  on  our 
positions.  As  far  as  we  knew  it  wasn't  the  Kaiser's 
birthday  or  the  anniversary  of  any  prehistoric  German 
victory,  so  we  put  it  down  to  nerves.  Their  gunners 
made  a  dead  set  on  a  field  in  our  front  just  behind  the 
ridge  along  the  Aisne.  Hundreds  of  Black  Marias  and 
shrapnel  were  sent  on  to  that  unlucky  piece  of  ground, 
and  it  was  wonderful  to  see  the  shot-ridden  earth  sent 
up  in  huge  volcanic  bursts.  The  enemy  thought  that 
we  had  a  battery  there,  but  we  hadn't  one  nearer  than 
half  a  mile,  hence  our  enjoyment  of  the  spectacle. 

On  the  afternoon  of  this  day  we  heard  that  Mr. 
Winston  Churchill  was  with  us  and  was  dining  with  the 
Scots  Greys.  At  least  that  was  the  rumour,  but  we 
hardly  believed  anything  we  heard  out  here.  He  was 
reported  to  have  said  that  the  war  would  last  another 
eighteen  months.  This  piece  of  information,  following 
on  an  early  morning's  alarm  and  in  cold  wet  weather, 
was  distinctly  cheering  !  However,  as  a  kind  of  set-off, 
in  the  late  afternoon  we  heard  that  the  Crown  Prince 
had   been    buried    again,  this  time    in  the   Argonne, 


AT  MONT  DE  SOISSONS  115 

and  that  it  had  been  authentically  established  that 
he  was  quite  dead  before  having  been  buried.  We  were 
glad  to  know  this,  because  on  the  other  occasions  when 
he  had  been  buried,  he  had  not  really  been  quite  dead. 

We  were  at  this  period  suffering  from  the  effects 
of  a  dislocated  postal  system.  I  had  not  yet  received 
any  letters  from  England,  and  did  not  know  if  mine  had 
reached  there.  We  were  all  anxious  to  get  the  London 
papers  to  *'  see  how  we  were  getting  on  at  the  front." 
We  knew  what  was  going  on  around  us,  but  knew  nothing 
more.  One  medical  officer  returned  from  Braisne,  told 
us  that  he  had  heard  a  great  rumour  there.  We  were 
all  agog  to  hear  it.  After  whetting  our  appetites  he 
gravely  told  us  that  a  Padre  had  informed  him  that, 
*'  All  Europe  was  in  the  melting  pot  and  the  devil  was 
stirring  the  broth.'*  This  officer  was  duly  punished  by 
having  his  rum  ration  cut  off. 

One  day  on  the  Aisne  I  was  an  interested  listener 
to  a  discussion  between  two  British  officers  and  three 
French  officers  on  national  characteristics,  and  this  led 
up  to  a  review  of  the  way  that  the  British,  French, 
and  German  charge  with  the  bayonet. 

The  French  charge  magnificently  with  the  bayonet, 
but  they  charge  in  a  state  of  tremendous  excitement. 
When  rushing  across  an  open  space  to  the  enemy  they 
shout  and  scream  with  excitement,  "  France  \"  "A 
bas  les  Boches  !  '*  "  En  avant !  "  They  are  uplifted 
with  the  wild  ecstasy  of  the  onfall.  Men  fall  in  the  mad 
rush  never  to  rise  again.  N'importe — all  is  unnoticed, 
on  they  go,  an  impetuous  and  irresistible  avalanche 


116  A  SURGEON  IN  KHAKI 

of  steel,  yelling,  stabbing,  slaying,  overwhelming. 
They  are  superb,  these  Frenchmen.  I  have  seen  them 
charge,  and  know  from  what  I  saw  the  splendid  fellows 
they  are.  In  the  Argonne,  on  the  Aisne,  and  in  Flanders, 
the  French  soldier  has  carried  out  as  resolute  and  daring 
bayonet  charges  as  ever  his  fathers  did  under  Napoleon, 
when  they  stormed  the  bridge  at  Lodi,  swept  over  the 
field  of  Marengo,  and  hacked  their  bloody  path  at 
Austerlitz. 

The  British  charge  stoically  and  more  grimly. 
They  do  not  shout.  I  have  heard  them  cursing.  The 
British  line  advances  as  a  sinister  cold  line  of  steel, 
in  a  sort  of  jog-trot.  It  is  a  line  of  cool-brained 
gladiators,  alert  of  eye  and  thoroughly  bent  on  slaughter. 
Our  Briton  sees  his  foe,  and  smites  savagely  with  the 
calculating  judgment  of  a  good  Rugby  forward  and 
with  the  bound  of  a  wild  cat.  The  disciplined  valour 
and  the  savage  relentlessness  of  the  British  bayonet 
attack  has  been  heralded  in  story  from  Malplaquet  to 
Waterloo,  from  Badajos  to  Inkermann,  and  historians 
will  chronicle  the  undying  glory  of  the  7th  Division 
at  Ypres  when  with  rifle  and  bayonet  it  held  the  gate 
to  Calais. 

The  German,  in  spite  of  what  is  often  said  to  the 
contrary,  is  a  brave  and  determined  man  with  the 
bayonet.  The  German  discipline  is  undoubted.  It  is 
a  part  of  the  people.  It  is  the  fibre  of  the  nation. 
Discipline,  subjection  to  authority,  has  not  to  be 
taught  to  this  people ;  it  is  absorbed  into  their  very 
being.     The    discipline    of    mind    and    body    as    we 


AT  MONT  DE  SOISSONS  117 

understand  it  is  not  the  discipline  of  the  German, 
for  his  is  an  obedience  to  authority  only, — a  "  go  '* 
when  ordered  to  "  go,"  a  "  come  "  when  ordered  to 
"  come/'  But  it  is  also  a  die  when  ordered  to  face 
certain  death.  Men  with  whom  this  discipline  is  a 
message  may  not  make  saints  or  pleasant  companions, 
but  do  make  sturdy  foes  and  stubborn  fighters. 

They  charge  well,  advancing  with  a  stooping,  jerky 
trot,  uttering  hoarse  guttural  cries  and  "  Hurrahs."  On 
they  come,  in  solid  masses  shoulder  to  shoulder,  hoping 
by  the  weight  and  speed  of  the  dense  columns  to  get  a 
momentum  that  nothing  can  withstand.  When  in  a 
solid  compact  phalanx  this  German  charge  is  very 
dangerous  and  formidable,  and  has  been  able,  although 
at  a  frightful  cost,  to  brush  aside  and  overwhelm 
veteran  British  and  French  troops. 

But  if  this  compact  line  and  solid  column  is  broken, 
as  it  so  often  is  to-day  by  shrapnel,  rifle,  or  machine-gun 
fixe,  the  sense  of  cohesion  or  "  shoulder  to  shoulder  " 
support  is  lost,  and  the  heavy  column  is  then  no  match 
for  the  lightning  bayonet  onfall  of  the  French  infantry 
or  the  weighty  heave  forward  of  a  British  regiment. 
The  German  infantryman  is  not  an  "  individual  " 
fighter,  but  he  is  nevertheless  a  brave  soldier,  and  knows 
how  to  meet  death.  All  three  peoples  have  a  great 
respect  for  each  other  when  it  comes  to  close  quarters 
and  take  no  chances. 

A  curious  feature  of  French  bayonet  charges  was 
told  me  by  a  French  officer.  He  said  that  if  the  daily 
dispatches  were  read  carefully  it  would  be  noticed  that 


118  A  SUEGEON  IN  KHAKI 

the  Germans,  when  they  attacked  the  French,  generally 
made  them  vacate  the  first  trench,  but  that  the  French 
always  counter-attacked,  retook  their  own,  and  carried 
the  charge  on  into  the  German  lines.  He  said  that 
the  Frenchmen  are  very  easily  surprised  and  are  only 
at  their  best  when  they  know  what  they  are  up  against 
and  what  they  have  to  do.  They  also  require  at  times 
to  be  worked  up  to  the  "  fire  "  of  the  business,  and  that 
this  was  specially  true  of  younger  troops.  The  officers 
know  this,  and  when  their  men  fall  back  from  the  front 
trench,  they  get  them  together,  tell  them  that  they 
must  go  forward  again, — that  France  is  watching  them, 
that  the  cursed  German  has  his  foot  in  beautiful 
France,  that  the  sons  of  the  men  of  Jena  and  Wagram 
must  still  show  their  metal ;  then  drawing  his  sword, 
and  with  "  En  avant,  mes  enfants,"  the  officer  leads 
forward,  followed  by  his  cheering  men,  and  they  are  at 
these  times  irresistible. 

There  is  a  story  told  at  the  front  of  a  famous 
Scottish  regiment  whose  deeds  have  won  admiration  in 
nearly  every  battle  in  English  history,  which  occupied 
some  advanced  trenches.  The  Germans  rushed  them 
in  overwhelming  numbers  and  drove  them  out  with 
the  bayonet.  Another  regiment,  composed  almost 
entirely  of  little  Cockneys,  was  called  up  in  support, 
and  gallantly  rushing  forward  drove  out  the  Germans 
and  took  many  prisoners.  They  then  told  the  brawny 
Scotchmen  that  they  could  go  back  to  their  trenches 

again  and  if  they  felt  anxious  at  any  time  the  M 

boys  from  London  would  be  only  too  pleased  to  come 


AT  MONT  DE  SOISSONS  119 

back  and  comfort  them.  Some  weeks  afterwards  the 
Ejlties  helped  the  Cockneys  out  of  a  hot  corner,  so  the 
odds  are  now  even. 

Talking  of  bayonet  charges  leads  up  to  bayonet 
wounds.  It  is  a  curious  fact,  well  noted  amongst 
surgeons  at  the  front,  that  there  are  very  few  bayonet 
wounds  to  treat.  Yet  bayonet  charges  are  constantly 
taking  place,  and  very  bloody  melees  they  are. 

Where  are  these  men  who  have  been  speared  by 
the  bayonet  ?  The  majority  are  dead,  for  the  bayonet 
when  it  gets  home  is  a  lethal  weapon.  When  it  pierces 
the  chest  or  abdomen  it,  as  a  rule,  reaches  a  big 
artery ;  a  rapid  haemorrhage  follows,  and  death  comes 
speedily. 

The  majority  of  bayonet  wounds  are  in  the  chest 
and  abdomen,  and  ghastly  terrible  wounds  they  are. 
After  the  Bavarians  and  Prussians  were  hurled  back 
at  Ypres  and  La  Bassee  there  were  comparatively 
few  bayonet  wounds.  Amongst  the  vast  number  of 
wounded  men  in  the  Clearing  Hospital  at  Bethune  I 
had  personally  to  treat  only  one  or  two  cases  of  bayonet 
wounds.  These  were,  as  a  rule,  simple  flesh  wounds, 
and  were  the  lucky  exceptions  amongst  the  bayonet 
victims. 

This  feature  about  bayonet  wounds  was  also  noted  by 
Larrey,  the  surgeon-in-chief  to  Napoleon  during  the 
great  Continental  wars,  by  M'Grigor,  surgeon-in-chief 
to  Wellington  in  the  Peninsula,  and  by  surgical  ob- 
servers at  a  later  period  during  the  Crimean  War.  A 
war  con'espondent  in  the  Crimea  wrote  that  a  man 


120  A  SURGEON  IN  KHAKI 

who  has  been  bayoneted  dies  in  great  pain,  that  his 
body  and  limbs  are  twisted  and  contorted  by  the  last 
agonised  movements  preceding  death.  This  belief  is 
fallacious.  Men  who  die  speedily  from  a  sudden  loss 
of  blood  die  easily  and  quietly.     They  go  to  sleep. 

The  German  bayonet  is  longer,  broader,  and  heavier 
than  that  of  the  Allies.  The  French  bayonet  is  not  a 
blade,  but  is  shaped  like  a  spear  or  stiletto.  The  British 
bayonet  is  a  blade,  short  and  light.  It  is  not,  however, 
the  blade  or  the  stiletto,  it  is  the  man  behind  that 
counts. 

I  mentioned  before  that  our  sick  and  wounded  were 
housed  in  a  loft  of  the  farm-chateau  of  Mont  de  Soissons 
and  in  a  shed  outside.  This  shed  or  lean-to  was  a  most 
uninviting  place  for  the  sick.  One  side  was  formed  by 
a  stone  wall,  from  the  top  of  that  a  roof  projected,  and 
this  roof  was  held  up  by  wooden  pillars.  There  was  no 
floor  and  there  were  no  other  walls.  It  was  quite  open 
to  every  wind  that  blew,  except  for  the  protection  of  the 
stone  wall  and  the  roof.  Straw  was  laid  on  the  ground 
of  this  lean-to  and  this  straw,  owing  to  the  constant 
rain  and  the  very  muddy,  filthy  state  of  the  roads  and 
yards  round  about,  got  very  sodden  at  times.  New 
straw  was  then  put  on  top  of  this  old  straw — that  was 
all.  It  wasn't  very  much,  truly.  Yet  badly  wounded 
men  were  brought  in  in  large  numbers  from  the  trenches 
and  kept  lying  on  this  sodden  straw  for  hours,  and  in 
some  cases  for  a  whole  day  and  night.  If  the  wounded 
man  arrived  after  eleven  o'clock  in  the  morning  he  had 
to  put  up  with  a  night  on  the  straw  in  this  lean-to.     If 


AT  MONT  DE  SOISSONS  121 

the  man  was  sick  from  one  of  the  usual  diseases  prevalent 
at  this  time — lumbago,  rheumatism,  and  sciatica — he 
was  led  up  to  the  loft  in  the  main  house.  If  he  had  a 
slight  wound  he  was  also  led  up  to  this  place,  but  if  he 
had  a  compound  fracture  or  an  abdominal  injury  it  was 
necessary  to  carry  him  up  on  a  stretcher,  and  the  stair 
up  to  the  loft  was  so  narrow  that  the  task  was  an 
extremely  difl&cult  one,  and  full  of  pain  and  misery 
to  the  patient.  The  loft  was  a  draughty  hole  and  not 
fit  to  accommodate  a  sick  mountain  goat.  But  it  was  a 
Buckingham  Palace  to  the  Whitechapel  lean-to  on  the 
stone  wall  outside.  Yet  on  this  dirty  sodden  straw  I 
have  dressed  foul,  septic  compound  fractures,  have 
elevated  a  fragment  of  loose  bone  pressing  on  a  man's 
brain,  and  have  stood  by  men  dying  from  gas  gangrene, 
and  from  pneumonia  due  to  exposure  from  lying  out 
in  the  rain  and  cold  after  having  been  wounded.  And 
every  time  I  saw  men  lying  out  in  that  open  shed  I 
have  asked,  "  Why  have  we  not  motor  ambulances  at 
the  front  ?  "  Every  morning  empty  lorries  returning 
from  distributing  their  supplies  at  the  front  called  in  at 
Mont  de  Soissons  and  took  our  wounded  down  to  rail- 
head ;  and  this  method  of  transportation  of  the  wounded 
was  one  of  the  horrors  of  war.  Our  wounded  and  sick 
did  not  arrive  according  to  any  time-table,  and  if  they 
arrived  at  midday  or  in  the  afternoon  or  evening,  they 
had,  willy-nilly,  to  be  accommodated  at  the  chateau- 
farm,  and  the  only  accommodation  we  could  offer  was 
the  windy,  inhospitable  loft  or  the  straw-covered  lean-to 
outside.     If  we  had  had  motor  ambulances  all  of  this 


122  A  SUKGEON  IN  KHAKI 

would  have  been  avoided.  Then  the  patients  would 
not  have  had  to  be  sent  to  our  headquarters  at  all,  but 
could  have  been  carried  to  railhead  at  once.  Why  did 
we  not  have  motor  ambulances  at  the  outset  of  war  ? 
God  knows.  Had  anyone  asked  me  five  years  ago  what 
was  the  best  way  of  transporting  a  wounded  or  sick  man 
with  an  army  in  the  field,  I  would  have  answered  at 
once,  "  By  motor  ambulance,  of  course." 

If  a  man  is  wounded  in  the  streets  of  London  or  any 
other  city  in  the  civilised  world  he  is  conveyed  to  the 
nearest  hospital  by  an  ambulance  motor-car.  When  the 
Army  Service  Corps  had  to  arrange  its  transport  for  this 
war,  they  naturally  thought  of  nothing  else  than  motor 
traction.  Yet  in  spite  of  the  lessons  of  army  manoeuvres 
in  this  country,  and  of  the  dictates  of  reason,  our  Army 
Medical  Department  sent  Field  Ambulances  to  the  front 
with  the  old  horse-ambulance  of  the  days  of  Napoleon 
and  Wellington,  and  did  not  have  a  solitary  motor 
ambulance  where  they  were  so  vitally  necessary.  The 
position  was  so  odd  and  incomprehensible  that  I  wrote 

about  it  to  Lord ,  who,  I  knew,  would  look  at  the 

matter  from  the   view-point    of    common   sense  and 

humanity.     Lord has  a  great  name  in  the  Empire, 

and  has  been  one  of  the  best  and  ablest  of  governors  of 
one  of  our  Dominions  beyond  the  seas.  I  knew  that  if 
I  wrote  to  him,  and  he  chose  to  act  as  I  was  sure  he  would, 
something  would  occur.  I  did  not,  owing  to  army  postal 
delays,  get  his  answer  till  long  after,  and  it  was  worded 
as  follows  (allowing  for  considerable  deletions  of  some 
parts  of  it,  and  for  names) : 


Loading  wounded  at  Soissons.     The  i-irst  motor  amuui.ance  on  the  Aisne. 


The  lean-to  at  Soissons.     Uni.oadini;  wounded. 


AT  MONT  DE  SOISSONS  123 

"  My  Dear  Martin, — I  received  your  letter  in 
London  on  Wednesday  night.     Within  half   an  hour 

of  its  arrival  I  hunted  up  Mr. .     I  found  him  in  a 

state  of  great  indignation  because  of  the  obstacles  put 

in  the  way  of giving  the  assistance  they  desire  to 

the  wounded  at  the  Front.  I  understand,  however, 
that  sixty  motor  ambulances  will  be  ready  on  Wednesday 
next,  and  that  further  ambulances  will  be  provided 
later.  Your  letter  has  been  read  by  Lord  Kitchener. 
It  arrived  at  an  opportune  moment,  when  the  gTeat  want 
of  motor  ambulances  at  the  Front  was  being  realised 
here.  I  hope  that  even  before  you  receive  this  letter 
the  scandal  which  makes  you  so  righteously  indignant 
may  have  been  removed  and  that  proper  arrangements 
are  now  in  successful  operation  for  the  treatment  of  the 
wounded. 

"  Please  let  me  hear  from  you  from  time  to  time  how 
things  are  going,  and  always  remember  that  I  shall 
be  more  than  pleased  if  I  can  give  you  the  slightest 
assistance  in  getting  those  things  done  which  you  may 
think  necessary. — Believe  me,  yours  sincerely, 


Shortly  after  this,  motor  ambulances  appeared, 
and  the  position  eased,  to  the  infinite  and  lasting  benefit 
of  our  wounded  officers  and  men.  I  still,  however,  often 
wonder  why  motor  ambulances  were  not  landed  in 
France  with  the  other  motor  vehicles  when  our  Expedi- 
tionary Army  disembarked.  Many  lives  would  have 
been  saved,  and  much  suffering  would  have  been 
avoided. 


CHAPTER    XII. 

FIELD  AMBULANCES  AND  MILITARY  HOSPITALS. 

The  military  medical  unit  known  as  a  Field  Ambulance 
deserves  some  description. 

The  Field  Ambulances  are  officially  designated  as 
Divisional  Troops  under  the  command  of  the  Assistant 
Director  of  Medical  Services.  A  Field  Ambulance 
consists  of  three  sections,  known  as  A,  B,  and  C  sections, 
and  each  of  these  sections  is  divided  into  a  "  bearer  '* 
and  a  "  tent  "  subdivision. 

The  personnel  consists  of  a  commanding  officer, 
generally  a  major  or  a  lieutenant-colonel  of  the 
Royal  Army  Medical  Corps,  who  is  always  in  one  of 
the  tent  subdivisions,  and  of  nine  other  medical  officers 
and  a  quartermaster,  generally  an  honorary  lieutenant 
or  captain,  of  the  R.A.M.C.  In  addition  there  are  242 
of  other  ranks,  bearers,  orderlies,  cooks.  Army  Service 
Corps  drivers,  officers"  servants,  dispensers,  clerks, 
washermen,  etc.  The  personnel  is  fairly  evenly  divided 
amongst  the  three  sections,  so  that  on  occasion  a 
section  of  a  Field  Ambulance  can  carry  on  a  limited 
but  complete  service.  As  will  be  seen  later  on  at 
Bethune,  one  section  of  our  ambulance  did  this,  and 
for  a  time  acted  as  a   Clearing  Hospital  and  passed 


AMBULANCES  AND  MILITARY  HOSPITALS    125 

thousands  of  wounded  tlirough  its  hands.  B  and  C 
sections  have  three  four-horsed  ambulance  waggons, 
and  A  section  has  four,  making  a  total  of  ten  waggons 
for  the  transport  of  wounded.  The  other  transport 
of  a  Field  Ambulance  consists  of  six  general  service 
waggons,  three  medical  store  carts,  three  water  carts, 
a  cooks'  cart,  and  an  extra  cart  for  odd  jobs.  The 
drivers  and  grooms  have  about  one  hundred  horses 
to  look  after. 

The  Field  Ambulance  carries  a  complete  hospital 
emergency  equipment.  Theoretically,  if  necessary  a 
serious  abdominal  operation,  a  trephining  operation, 
or  an  amputation  could  be  carried  out  at  an  ambulance 
station  by  skilled  surgeons  surrounded  by  the  latest 
and  best  of  surgical  instruments  and  in  antiseptic 
surroundings.  I  said  theoretically,  but  as  a  matter  of 
fact  such  a  state  of  affairs  is  not  achieved,  and  the 
surgery  performed  at  Field  Ambulance  stations  is 
crude  and  temporary. 

A  Field  Ambulance  station  is  a  first-aid  station,  and 
surgery  is  avoided  as  much  as  possible.  The  equipment 
of  our  Field  Ambulance  to-day  leaves  very  much  to 
be  desired,  and  I  earnestly  hope  that  during  this  war 
the  whole  organisation  will  be  thoroughly  reviewed, 
reorganised,  and  remodelled,  and  that  there  will  be 
evolved  a  medical  unit  more  in  consonance  with  the 
modern  conceptions  of  good  clean  surgery.  The  Field 
Ambulance  should  receive  the  wounded  from  the 
Brigade  which  it  serves,  and  as  long  as  it  holds  these 
wounded  it  should  be  able  to  give  them  the  very  best 


126  A  SURGEON  IN  KHAKI 

surgical  and  medical  help.  It  must  send  the  wounded 
as  speedily  as  possible  to  the  hospitals  and  stations 
in  the  rear,  and  keep  the  fighting  line,  of  which  it 
is  really  a  part,  as  clear  of  wounded  as  possible.  It 
must  conform  to  the  demands  of  the  military  situation ; 
for  after  all  war  is  war,  and  the  purpose  of  a  war  is  to 
beat  the  enemy  with  sound  troops  and  get  the  wounded 
out  of  the  way.  A  Field  Ambulance  can  do  all  this 
and  must  do  all  this,  and  yet  it  need  not  be  too  obsessed 
with  the  idea  that  immediately  a  badly  wounded  man 
is  brought  in  he  must  necessarily  be  bundled  of!  to  the 
base,  irrespective  of  the  nature  or  magnitude  of  his 
wounds.  The  future  of  very  many  battlefield  in- 
juries depends  on  the  first  treatment  received,  and  a 
skilled  surgeon  surrounded  with  familiar  tools  and 
appliances  to  ensure  absolute  cleanliness  can  be  a  god  of 
mercy  and  confer  health  and  power  on  many  a  stricken 
man.  A  blundering,  incompetent  amateur,  lacking  the 
divine  essence  of  knowing  his  own  imperfections  and 
courageously  taking  responsibilities  which  are  sky- 
high  above  him,  can  inflict  a  lifelong  wrong  and  deprive 
a  man  of  his  power  to  earn  his  livelihood  in  the  future. 
The  cautious  and  conservative  surgeon  is  ever  the 
boldest  when  boldness  means  success.  In  every  Field 
Ambulance  in  this  war  and  in  future  wars,  let  us  see 
to  it  that  we  have  a  cautious  and  conservative  surgeon. 
The  medical  officer  is  not  as  a  rule  a  good  horse 
master.  From  my  experience  (and  I  am  speaking 
both  from  what  I  saw  in  the  South  African  War  and 
in  this  war),  the  medical  officer  is  a  very  indifferent 


AMBULANCES  AND  MILITARY  HOSPITALS    127 

horse  master.  He  will  do  his  best,  as  he  always  does 
in  all  circumstances ;  but  it  is  clearly  unfair  to  ask  a 
doctor,  who  knows  as  much  about  horses  as  a  monk 
does  about  antelopes,  to  take  charge  of  a  unit  com- 
prising about  one  hundred  horses,  sixteen  four-horsed 
waggons,  and  seven  or  eight  two-horsed  carts.  Army 
Service  Corps  drivers,  and  a  miscellaneous  lot  of  grooms. 
I  have  seen  an  amiable  and  competent  Army  Medical 
officer  dismayed  when  he  was  compelled,  owing  to 
some  duty,  to  get  on  a  horse's  back,  and  the  horse 
seemed  to  know  and  enjoy  it,  for,  usually  a  docile, 
mild-eyed  beast,  he  at  these  times  became  exceedingly 
sportive.  Yet  this  officer  may  have,  owing  to  his  rank, 
to  assume  charge  later  of  a  hundred  horses  and  a  lot 
of  waggons.  A  shoemaker  should  stick  to  his  last, 
and  a  doctor  is  only  at  home  with  his  own  professional 
work. 

The  remedy  is  to  put  Field  Ambulances  under 
trained  officers  of  the  Army  Service  Corps.  They  are 
experts  in  the  management  of  convoys  and  transports, 
and  could  manage  the  field  work  of  an  ambulance  to 
the  infinite  satisfaction  of  everybody.  Leave  the 
doctors  to  the  purely  professional  work.  There  is 
enough  of  that  to  be  done.  Doctors  are  too  valuable 
as  doctors  to  spare  them  for  work  which  A.S.C.  sub- 
alterns and  young  captains  can  perform.  The  ar- 
ranging of  advanced  dressing  stations,  the  choosing 
of  buildings  as  hospital  sites,  can  be  done  by  the  A.D.M.S. 
of  the  division,  and  the  purely  workman's  part  of  the 
job  can  be  done  by  the  A.S.C.  officer  and  his  men. 


128  A  SURGEON  IN  KHAKI 

The  transportation  of  wounded  from  the  fighting 
line  has  been  extraordinarily  well  carried  out  by  the 
Royal  Army  Medical  Corps  and  the  Red  Cross  since 
our  army  took  up  its  present  fighting  line  in  France  and 
Flanders.  During  the  great  retreat  the  transportation 
was  ineffective,  and  there  is  no  doubt  at  all  that  many 
of  our  wounded  who  had  to  be  left  behind  could  have 
been  rescued  if  we  had  had  motor  ambulance  convoys 
as  we  have  to-day. 

On  the  Marne,  and  for  the  first  week  on  the  Aisne,  the 
transport  of  the  wounded  to  the  base  was  most  im- 
perfect. Who  is  to  blame  for  this  is  a  matter  that  will 
have  to  be  thrashed  out  when  the  piping  days  of  peace 
arrive,  and  we  have  time  once  again  to  put  our  house 
in  order  and  profit  by  the  lessons  of  the  war.  The  only 
means  of  transport  previous  to  the  arrival  of  the 
motor  ambulances  was  by  transport  lorries  belonging 
to  the  Army  Service  Corps.  These  waggons  brought 
provisions  and  supplies  to  the  front,  and  on  returning 
empty  had  to  call  at  the  various  ambulance  stations. 
Straw  was  laid  on  the  floors  of  these  lorries,  and  the 
wounded  were  packed  tightly  on  the  straw.  This 
method  of  transportation  for  a  man  suffering  from 
pneumonia  or  compound  fracture,  a  chest  wound  or  a 
wound  in  the  abdomen,  was  a  terrible  ordeal,  and  un- 
doubtedly added  intense  suffering,  misery,  and  dis- 
comfort to  our  badly  stricken  soldiers.  Things  im- 
proved directly  on  the  advent  of  the  comfortable, 
well-sprung  motor  ambulance.  From  the  firing  line 
to  the  horsed  or  motor  ambulance  the  man  is  carried 


AMBULANCES  AND  MILITARY  HOSPITALS    129 

on  a  stretcher  by  hand,  but  all  future  transportation  is 
by  motor  ambulance,  train,  river-barge,  and  steamer. 

When  a  man  is  wounded  at  the  front  he  is  brought 
in  by  regimental  bearers  to  the  dressing  station  of  the 
medical  officer  of  the  battalion.  This  is  generally  either 
a  "  dug-out  "  or  is  situated  in  a  cottage  a  little  way  back 
or  sometimes  behind  a  stone  wall  or  near  a  clump  of 
trees.  Here  the  regimental  doctor  simply  dresses  the 
wound,  as  cleanly  as  possible  under  the  circumstances, 
stops  all  bleeding  and  applies  rough  splints  to  fractured 
limbs,  and  administers  morphia  if  there  is  much  pain. 
These  regimental  aid  posts  are  dangerous  places  well 
within  shell  fire,  and  the  wounded  are  got  out  of  them 
as  quickly  as  possible,  and  generally  at  night.  They 
are  carried  on  stretchers  to  the  ambulance  waggons — 
horse  or  motor — which  are  drawn  up  on  some  point 
of  a  road,  or  sometimes  in  a  village  farther  back.  From 
here  the  wounded  man  is  conveyed  to  the  headquarters 
of  the  ambulance  in  a  village  or  chateau  or  church, 
and  his  wounds  are  again  dressed,  if  necessary,  but  as 
little  handling  as  possible  is  done,  although  the  soldier 
thinks  that  his  wounds  should  be  frequently  dressed. 
At  the  ambulance  headquarters  urgent  operations,  often 
of  a  serious  character,  have  sometimes  to  be  carried 
out,  but  no  operation  is  done  if  the  case  will  permit  of 
safe  transportation  farther  back.  The  next  rest-house 
for  the  wounded  man  is  the  Clearing  Hospital  or  Casualty 
Clearing  Station,  and  through  this  pass  the  wounded  of 
many  ambulances.  Many  wounded  are  brought  direct 
from  the  trenches  to  a  Casualty  Clearing  Hospital  with- 
9 


130  A  SURGEON  IN  KHAKI 

out  calling  at  all  at  the  ambulance  headquarters. 
All  urgent  operations  are  performed  at  the  Casualty- 
Clearing  Station,  and  this  station  should  be  thoroughly- 
well  equipped  in  staff  and  'personnel  as  -well  as  with  all 
the  modern  appurtenances  so  necessary  for  the  safe 
performance  of  intricate  and  dangerous  surgical 
operations. 

For  obvious  reasons  the  Clearing  Hospital  or 
Casualty  Clearing  Station  could  not  fulfil  its  destiny 
during  the  retreat  of  our  army  from  Belgium  to  the 
east  of  Paris.  If  the  army  is  retreating,  the  Clearing 
Hospital  must  go.  It  is  part  of  the  line  of  communica- 
tions and  would  impede  and  cumber  the  fighting 
divisions  as  they  fall  back.  If  full  of  wounded  at  this 
time,  it  would  of  course  be  captured  by  the  advancing 
enemy,  as  the  Clearing  Hospital  has  no  transport  of  its 
own,  and  depends  on  the  regular  transport  department 
of  the  army.  There  ought  to  be  a  transport  attached 
to  a  Clearing  Hospital  and  solely  under  the  control  of 
the  commanding  officer,  and  it  would  be  of  great 
advantage  to  have  the  whole  Clearing  Hospital  under 
the  command  of  an  Army  Service  Corps  officer  of 
experience,  a  man  accustomed  to  the  transportation 
of  supplies  and  to  commanding  drivers  of  vehicles 
and  mechanics.  To  put  a  Clearing  Hospital  under  the 
command  of  a  doctor  as  is  now  done  is  as  absurd  as  it 
would  be  to  place  a  large  civil  hospital  under  the 
control  of  a  doctor. 

Our  civil  hospitals  are  governed  by  Boards  and  a 
Secretary   who  has  the   whole   administration  at   his 


AMBULANCES  AND  MILITARY  HOSPITALS    131 

finger-ends.  The  medical  staff  do  not  control  or  govern 
a  civil  hospital.  They  are  busy  enough  in  their  own 
sphere,  which  is  a  purely  professional  one — the  treatment 
and  cure  of  the  sick  inmates.  So  with  the  Clearing 
Hospitals,  the  Army  Service  Corps  officer  should  be 
in  charge  of  the  hospital,  and  the  purely  professional 
part  of  the  hospital,  the  treatment  of  the  wounded, 
should  be  entirely  and  absolutely  under  the  control 
of  the  medical  staff,  and  completely  outside  the  range 
of  action  of  the  administrative  chief.  The  evacuation 
of  the  wounded  from  the  Clearing  Hospital  to  the 
hospital  train  and  Base  could  be  controlled  also  by  the 
administrative  lay  head  of  the  hospital,  and  all  that 
the  medical  officers  would  be  concerned  with  would  be 
the  cases  suitable  to  evacuate  and  when  they  should 
be  evacuated.  There  would  at  first  be  considerable 
opposition  to  this  course  by  the  regular  Army  Medical 
Corps,  but  they  could  not  advance  any  cogent  argu- 
ments against  the  devolution  of  administrative  author- 
ity from  them  to  the  Army  Service  Corps. 

The  Royal  Army  Medical  Corps  is,  or  should  be, 
a  professional  body  of  men.  Anything  that  impairs 
their  professional  efficiency  is  bad.  The  control  of 
Field  Ambulances  and  Clearing  Hospitals  is  not  a 
professional  man's  metier,  and  he  does  not  shine  in  this 
position.  Too  much  military  control  or  command 
changes  the  army  medical  officer  from  a  doctor  to  a 
military  officer,  and  this  change  is  not  to  be  desired. 

In  civil  life  the  more  experienced  a  doctor  is,  the 
bigger  becomes  his    practice   and  the  wider  becomes 


132  A  SURGEON  IN  KHAKI 

his  sphere  of  professional  usefulness.  In  military  life, 
experience  means  promotion  to  higher  rank,  and  the 
higher  the  rank  the  less  the  professional  work  and  the 
more  the  administrative  work. 

In  war  time,  as  witness  South  Africa  and  this  present 
war,  civil  surgeons  have  to  be  called  in  large  numbers 
to  undertake  important  surgical  work.  The  experience 
of  medical  officers  of  the  army  in  peace  is  professionally 
a  poor  one.  They  are  rarely  called  upon  to  perform 
serious  surgical  operations,  for  a  man  requiring  an 
important  surgical  operation  is  no  longer  of  use  as  a 
soldier,  and  is  invalided  out  of  the  army.  This  man 
then  necessarily  comes  under  the  civilian  surgeon,  who 
sets  about  to  cure  him,  if  possible,  of  his  affliction.  An 
urgent  appendix  operation,  a  rupture,  the  removal  of  a 
loose  cartilage  in  a  knee  joint  and  varicose  veins  in  their 
various  manifestations — these,  roughly  speaking,  com- 
pose the  experience  in  surgery  of  the  army  doctor  in 
times  of  peace. 

In  advanced  and  intricate  surgery  in  the  abdomen 
he  gets  no  practice,  and  yet  it  is  just  the  experience 
gained  in  this  branch  of  surgery  that  is  so  vitally 
important  to  surgeons  at  the  front  to-day. 

A  surgeon  at  the  front  should  be  a  man  of  ripe 
judgment  and  a  good  operator.  He  should  know  when 
to  operate,  and  what  is  equally  important,  when  not  to 
operate.  He  should  know  whether  a  wounded  man 
should  be  operated  upon  at  once  without  exposing 
him  to  the  risk  of  further  transportation,  or  whether  he 
could  be  transported  to  a  Base  Hospital  without  en- 


AMBULANCES  AND  MILITARY  HOSPITALS    133 

dangering  his  safety.  And  if  the  case  demands  im- 
mediate surgery  at  the  front,  this  surgeon  should  be 
able  to  undertake  the  operation  himself.  Surgeons  of 
approved  judgment  and  skill  are  not  hard  to  find,  and 
every  Base  Hospital,  every  stationary  Hospital,  every 
Casualty  Clearing  Hospital,  every  Field  Ambulance 
should  have  one  officer  on  its  staff  possessing  the 
qualities  and  attributes  mentioned.  And  such  a  dis- 
tribution is  the  easiest  thing  in  the  world  to  effect. 

These  men  can  be  drawn  from  the  civil  side  of  the 
profession,  as  the  military  side,  the  Royal  Army  Medical 
Corps  proper,  cannot  provide  them. 

There  are  of  course  able  surgeons  in  the  Royal 
Army  Medical  Corps,  men  who,  were  they  in  civil 
life,  would  have  large  consulting  practices  and  great 
reputations,  but  these  men  are  few  and  are  of  that 
surgical  bent  which  will  rise  superior  to  its  military 
environment,  and  keeping  touch  with  modern  work, 
will  absorb  all  that  is  good  and  new  in  the  methods  and 
technique  of  surgery. 

This  lack  of  appreciation  of  the  requirements  of 
modern  surgery  has  been  evidenced  in  so  many  instances 
at  the  front  with  our  Field  Ambulance  and  Clearing 
Hospital  equipment. 

One  day  early  in  the  war  I  had  a  number  of  wounded 
men  to  treat,  all  with  dirty  septic  wounds.  The  method 
of  sterilising  our  hands  was  inefficient  and  I  asked  for 
rubber  gloves.  Rubber  gloves  for  the  hands  of  the 
surgeon  are  absolutely  essential  when  dealing  with  a 
number  of  septic  cases.     After  handling  septic  cases 


134  A  SURGEON  IN  KHAKI 

he  may  be  called  upon  at  any  moment  to  operate  on 
a  case  requiring  the  strictest  antisepsis  or  asepsis  to 
give  the  wounded  man  a  fighting  chance  of  life.  I  asked 
a  senior  medical  officer  of  the  ambulance  for  these 
rubber  gloves.  Judge  of  my  consternation  and  amaze- 
ment when  he  said  that  "  There  were  no  rubber  gloves 
in  the  ambulance  equipment,  and  he  did  not  believe 
in  the  necessity  for  rubber  gloves."  When  the  ambulance 
was  being  equipped  previous  to  leaving  this  country 
at  the  outbreak  of  war  he  could  have  obtained  as  many 
pairs  of  rubber  gloves  as  he  wished,  but  because  he  did 
not  think  them  necessary,  they  were  not  obtained.  He 
did  not  realise  what  war  surgery  would  be  like  and  had 
not  been  accustomed  to  operate  on  a  large  scale.  This 
blunder  on  his  part  was  inexcusable  and  serious,  and 
the  one  who  suffered  from  such  a  blunder  was  not  him- 
self but  a  wounded  officer  or  man. 

In  a  Clearing  Hospital  in  a  small  town  in  France 
to  which  I  was  temporarily  attached  for  some  days, 
again  I  could  not  obtain  rubber  gloves,  although  I 
had  there  to  operate  on  profoundly  septic  cases,  on  the 
cases  of  appalling  gas  gangrene  and  also  on  recent 
wounds  of  knee  joints,  of  brain,  and  abdomen.  I 
asked  for  rubber  gloves  and  was  promised  them.  None 
came.  On  my  own  initiative  I  wrote  to  a  London 
surgical  supply  establishment  and  obtained  three  dozen 
pairs  of  rubber  gloves  by  return  mail. 

Was  this  fair  to  our  wounded  ? 

At  another  time  I  had  a  difficult  bowel  operation 
to  do,  and  the  only  fine  needles  in  stock  could  not  be 


AMBULANCES  AND  MILITARY  HOSPITALS    135 

used  as  the  finest  silk  available  there  would  not  go 
through  the  eyes  of  the  needles.  The  examination  of 
the  silk  and  the  needles  had  not  been  carried  out  when 
the  equipment  was  being  put  together  in  England.  At 
this  same  place  I  had  nothing  strong  enough  to  ligature 
blood-vessels  at  the  bottom  of  deep  septic  wounds, 
except  silk.  The  catgut  was  too  fine  and  brittle  to  hold 
a  big  blood-vessel,  yet  any  surgeon  will  tell  you  that  to 
put  a  silk  ligature  on  a  vessel  in  a  foul  wound  is  very 
bad  surgical  technique.  Yet  it  had  to  be  done.  Again, 
in  a  dangerous  operation  on  the  knee  joint  I  could  not 
get  any  sterilised  towels  nor  an  aneurism  needle  nor  a 
pair  of  scissors.  The  only  scissors  had  been  lost,  and 
only  one  aneurism  needle,  which  had  also  been  lost, 
was  supplied  in  the  instrument  case.  The  patient  was 
an  officer  who  had  been  struck  by  shrapnel  at  the  back 
of  the  knee,  on  the  shoulder,  and  on  one  foot  and  one 
hand.  He  bled  smartly  and  was  admitted  to  this 
Clearing  Hospital  with  a  tourniquet  round  his  thigh  to 
control  the  bleeding  temporarily.  I  opened  up  the 
wound  behind  the  knee  and  secured  the  large  bleeding 
artery  and  veins  there,  and  all  I  had  to  ligature  these 
vessels  with  was  silk.  There  was  no  stout  catgut,  as 
there  ought  to  have  been.  Also  I  could  only  get  two 
sterilised  towels,  and  these  I  had  to  boil  myself.  This 
was  in  a  Clearing  Hospital  at  the  front  in  November 
last  year.  There  were  no  gloves.  There  were  none  of 
the  things  round  one  to  treat  shock  from  which  the 
ofiicer  suffered  after  the  operation.  It  made  one 
despair.     Yet  all  of  these  things  should  have  been  at 


136  A  SUEGEON  IN  KHAKI 

hand,  and  could  have  been  easily  obtained  by  the 
exercise  of  some  forethought.  No  wonder  the  wounds 
in  so  many  cases  were  at  this  time  sent  back  to  England 
in  such  a  foul  and  septic  condition.  It  was  not  the 
military  authorities  who  were  to  blame.  The  military 
chiefs  did  all  they  could  to  help  the  medical  depart- 
ment and  always  have  done  so.  The  fault  lay  at  the 
door  of  the  Royal  Army  Medical  Corps  chiefs,  and  after 
the  war  these  things  will  again  be  reviewed  in  order  to 
prevent  a  future  repetition. 

My  criticism  is  meant  entirely  for  the  good  of  our 
wounded  officers  and  men.  They  deserve  the  best,  and 
it  is  the  duty  of  the  Army  Medical  Department  to  give 
them  of  the  best.  It  is  only  by  pointing  out  defects 
that  improvement  can  follow,  and  the  only  man  who 
can  point  out  these  medical  defects  is  a  surgeon  who  has 
actually  had  to  operate  on  wounded  men  in  a  Field 
Ambulance  or  in  a  Clearing  Hospital  under  adverse 
surroundings. 

It  is  an  easy  matter  to  arrange  for  a  modern  surgical 
equipment  for  a  Field  Ambulance  or  a  Clearing  Hospital. 
Sterilisers  for  instruments  and  towels  and  dressings  are 
not  cumbrous  appliances  and  do  not  take  up  much 
space.  The  surgical  instrument  case  at  present  in  use 
by  the  Royal  Army  Medical  Corps  is  out  of  date  and 
requires  a  complete  revision  and  overhaul  by  a  surgeon 
who  is  accustomed  to  operate,  and  not  by  a  committee 
of  senior  or  retired  officers  of  the  Army  Medical  Stafi. 
The  younger  officers  of  the  Royal  Army  Medical  Corps 
and   the    "  professional "    men    amongst    the    seniors 


AMBULANCES  AND  MILITARY  HOSPITALS    137 

recognise  the  defects  of  the  present  system,  but  natur- 
ally they  cannot  say  much.  This  lack  of  medical 
equipment  and  the  "  unreasonableness  ''  of  the  medical 
department  is  a  common  subject  of  conversation  at  the 
front  amongst  civilian  medical  officers,  and  I  have  seen 
some  of  these  men  indignant  beyond  measure  at  what 
they  have  seen  and  met  with. 

The  Clearing  Hospital,  in  addition  to  being  a  '*  rest- 
house  "  on  the  via  dolorosa  of  the  wounded,  is  also  a 
sieve.  It  has  to  sift  the  lightly  wounded  from  the 
seriously  wounded  and  the  serious  cases  from  the 
desperate  cases.  In  this  process  of  sifting  a  large  col- 
lection of  wounded  men,  it  discriminates  between  those 
who  are  fit  to  be  sent  to  the  Base  and  those  who  must 
remain  for  a  longer  or  a  shorter  period.  Many  claim 
that  the  Clearing  Hospital  is  not  a  hospital  per  se  but 
holds  a  purely  administrative  position.  I  feel  sure  that 
it  will  become  more  and  more  a  hospital  as  time  goes 
on,  and  that  its  present  surgical  and  medical  equip- 
ment will  necessarily  undergo  a  complete  reorganisa- 
tion. To-day  its  equipment  is  little  more  than  that 
of  a  Field  Ambulance.  It  is  not  equipped  to  deal  with 
extensive  and  serious  operations,  and  yet  serious  opera- 
tions have  been  performed  and  will  necessarily  continue 
to  be  performed  at  the  Clearing  Hospital. 

There  is  no  shadow  of  doubt  that  many  of  the  men 
operated  upon  at  Bethune  in  the  Hopital  Civil  et  Mili- 
taire  later  on  in  the  war  owe  their  recovery  in  a  very 
large  measure  to  the  excellence  of  the  complete  sterilis- 
ing equipment  and  cleanly  surroundings.    No  trouble 


138  A  SURGEON  IN  KHAKI 

can  be  too  great  and  no  expense  should  be  spared  to 
make  the  surgical  stations  at  the  front  up  to  date  in 
all  that  makes  for  surgical  cleanliness. 

It  is  even  more  necessary  to  have  the  skilled  surgeon 
at  the  front  than  at  the  Base,  but  we  have  any  amount 
of  skilled  surgeons  for  both  places.  A  skilled  operating 
man  of  experience  should  not  be  attached  to  a  regiment 
as  regimental  surgeon  while  a  recently  qualified  man  is 
deputed  to  blood  his  ""prentice  hand  at  a  major  operation 
in  a  Clearing  Hospital.  Yet  this  has  been  done,  and  I 
know  of  an  instance  where  a  recently  qualified  man  per- 
formed his  first  trephining  operation  on  a  soldier  with 
a  bad  head  injury  whilst  a  few  miles  away  there 
was  an  experienced  operator  engaged  solely  in  first-aid 
work  as  regimental  surgeon. 

I  was   told   by   a  senior   officer  of   the  R.A.M.C. 

that  in  the  city  of  X before  the  war  he  had  as 

assistant  in  his  military  operating  room  a  very  clever 
young  R.A.M.C.  orderly.  This  man  was  well  trained 
in  the  sterilisation  of  instruments  and  dressings  and 
in  the  preparation  of  a  room  for  operations.  When  the 
ambulance  was  mobilised  in  this  city  on  the  outbreak 
of  war  the  medical  ofiicer  applied  for  this  man,  who 
would  have  been  invaluable,  to  be  appointed  to  the 
tent  section  of  the  Field  Ambulance.  Here  the  training 
and  knowledge  of  this  orderly  would  have  been  of 
great  service.  Instead  of  that,  the  man  was  appointed 
to  look  after  the  water  waggon  of  an  infantry  regiment 
and  was  killed  early  in  the  war.  Any  untrained  man 
would  have  done  for  the  water  cart,  but  a  lot  of  train- 


AMBULANCES  AND  MILITARY  HOSPITALS  139 

ing    is    necessary    to    make    a    good    hospital    room 
assistant. 

At  the  Clearing  Hospital  the  wounded  man  meets 
for  the  first  time  the  Army  Nurse  This  is  the  nearest 
point  to  the  firing  line  that  our  nurses  are  allowed  to  go, 
but  I  know  lots  of  them  who  are  extremely  anxious  to 
go  into  the  trenches.  The  nurse  is  a  welcome  sight  to 
both  ofl&cers  and  men,  and  no  man  nurse  can  adequately 
take  the  place  of  a  trained  woman.  The  presence  of 
nursing  sisters  in  a  hospital  is  good  and  wholesome,  and 
where  they  are  the  hospital  work  is  carried  on  infinitely 
better  and  the  patient  is  well  looked  after.  R.A.M.C. 
orderlies  do  not  like  our  nursing  sisters.  The  sister 
makes  the  orderly  work,  will  not  allow  him  to  smoke 
in  the  wards,  makes  him  wash  his  hands  and  keep  tidy. 
To  the  slacker,  of  course,  these  things  are  highly  un- 
palatable, and  there  are  many  slackers  about.  Our 
British  nursing  sisters  are  splendid  women,  and  work 
ungrudgingly  and  sympathetically  always.  It  is  good 
to  see  a  bright-faced,  white-aproned  nurse  amongst  the 
wounded,  and  she  is  extraordinarily  popular  with  her 
patients. 

The  hospital  train  in  France  is  a  well-run  unit.  The 
accommodation  for  the  sick  and  wounded  is  excellent, 
trained  nurses  accompany  each  train,  and  the  medical 
arrangements  are  controlled  by  three  doctors,  generally 
a  regular  army  medical  officer  in  charge  and  with  two 
temporary  lieutenants  or  civil  surgeons  to  assist  him 
to  do  the  actual  professional  work.  No  surgical  or 
medical    work  worth  mentioning  is  done  on  hospital 


140  A  SURGEON  IN  KHAKI 

trains ;  they  are  simply  means  to  an  end — the  end  is 
the  Base  Hospital. 

The  Base  Hospitals  in  France  are  well-run  units  also. 
There  are  here  big  medical  and  nursing  staffs,  a  large 
number  of  orderlies,  and  any  amount  of  equipment. 
I  was  for  some  time  Surgical  Specialist  at  No.  6  General 
Hospital  at  Rouen,  and  this  hospital  was  splendidly 
administered  by  the  commanding  officer,  Lieutenant- 
Colonel  .     In  the  Base  Hospitals  there  are  good 

operating  rooms,  and  in  fact  every  modern  appliance 
that  one  could  desire.  It  is  a  pity  that  the  same  care 
in  administration  and  equipment  had  not  been  carried 
farther  up  and  nearer  our  soldiers  at  the  front. 


CHAPTER   XIII. 
GOOD-BYE  TO  THE  AISNE. 

Early  in  October,  and  at  night,  the  Ambulance  again 
took  the  road — we  turned  our  back  on  the  Aisne  and  with 
the  2nd  Army  Corps  began  the  famous  move  across 
the  French  lines  of  communication  to  the  Belgian 
frontier  and  into  Flanders.  This  change  of  position 
will  be  written  up  in  the  future  as  one  of  the  most 
masterly  episodes  of  the  war.  It  was  a  formidable 
task  to  move  the  British  Army  and  its  supplies  across 
the  French  lines  and  bring  them  into  an  entirely  new 
position  on  the  front.  It  had  to  be  carried  out  with 
the  utmost  secrecy.  None  of  us  knew  where  we  were 
going.  Each  day  the  secret  orders  were  issued  and  the 
various  brigades  and  columns  carried  out  the  indicated 
programme,  while  the  French  took  up  our  positions 
and  trenches  as  we  retired  from  them.  This  was  done 
also  with  great  secrecy.  I  can  imagine  the  perturbation 
of  the  Saxons  and  Wurtemburgers  on  our  front  on 
seeing  French  hepis  and  uniforms  where  for  weeks  they 
had  seen  the  khaki.  The  2nd  Corps  moved  ofi  first. 
The  1st  Corps  left  a  week  later. 

On  the  first  night  we  marched  through  Nampteuil 
and  reached  Droszy  about  midnight.     It  was  a  beautiful 

141 


142  A  SURGEON  IN  KHAKI 

starlight  night  with  a  biting  frost.  We  billeted  in  a 
spacious  chateau,  with  plenty  of  cover  for  the  ambulance 
waggons  and  with  stables  for  the  horses.  The  men  slept 
in  stable  lofts  and  the  officers  on  the  floor  of  the  marble 
hall.  The  hall  was  a  beautiful  room,  containing  some 
valuable  old  furniture.  The  walls  were  covered  with 
relics  of  the  chase  of  the  days  of  Louis  xiv.,  and  old 
hunting  horns,  knives,  and  boar  spears.  Part  of  the 
chateau  was  modern,  and  part  consisting  of  a  wonderful 
old  tower,  loopholed  for  arrows,  was  evidently  all  that 
was  left  of  the  keep  of  a  strong  feudal  castle.  The 
proprietor  was  an  old  rear-admiral  of  the  French  Navy 
and  he  received  us  with  the  greatest  courtesy;  the 
Norfolks  arrived  an  hour  after  us  and  quartered  in 
a  big  house  and  yard  close  by.  Our  brigadier.  Count 
Gleichen,  arrived  early  in  the  morning  and  slept  in  our 
chateau. 

A  Taube  was  seen  approaching  in  the  morning  and 
every  one  was  ordered  to  get  under  cover  or  stand  stock- 
still.  This  Taube  was  evidently  trying  to  find  out 
the  reason  for  the  absence  of  British  in  the  old  trenches 
and  the  presence  of  the  French  in  their  place.  We 
surmised  correctly  that  the  Teutonic  curiosity  was 
considerably  aroused.  A  few  hours  afterwards  another 
Taube  appeared — or  it  may  have  been  our  first  visitor — 
and  flying  very  fast,  for  a  French  airman  was  in  hot 
pursuit.  Both  soon  disappeared  into  the  upper  blue, 
but  we  laid  our  odds  on  the  Frenchman. 

At  6.30  that  night  we  again  got  under  way  and  had 
a  magnificent  night  march  to  Longpont,  arriving  there  at 


(_'HATK.\r    OF    LON(;rONT. 


Village  of  Longpont. 


GOOD-BYE  TO  THE  AISNE  143 

10.30  p.m.  Longpont  is  a  wonderful  old  place.  The 
Chateau  Longpont  dates  back  to  very  early  times 
and  contains  some  marvellous  old  tapestry.     It  is  the 

home  of  the  Comte  and  Comtesse   M ,  and   they 

were  in  residence  at  this  time  and  entertained  as 
their  guests  on  this  day  General  Sir  Charles  Ferguson 
and  his  staff.  Sir  Charles  was  the  Commander  of  the 
5th  Division  of  the  2nd  Army  Corps.  The  Comte  and 
Comtesse  had  as  guests,  some  weeks  previously,  General 
von  Kluck,  Commander  of  the  right  wing  of  the  German 
Army,  and  had  some  interesting  anecdotes  to  tell  of  this 
hard-fighting  General  and  his  staff. 

Abutting  on  the  chateau  were  the  famous  ruins  of 
the  abbey  of  Longpont.  The  remains  of  the  old 
abbey  are  so  historic  that  they  are  known  in  France  as 
*'  Les  Ruines."  It  was  built  by  the  Cistercian  monks 
in  the  twelfth  century,  and  in  the  adjoining  priory  over 
three  hundred  monks  were  accommodated  in  the  days 
when  the  Church  was  omnipotent  in  France.  During 
the  Reign  of  Terror  the  beautiful  old  abbey  was 
destroyed  by  the  revolutionaries,  but  the  massive 
character  of  the  pillars  and  walls  proved  too  much 
even  for  these  iconoclasts,  and  stand  to-day,  clothed 
in  ivy  and  moss,  the  monuments  of  a  glorious  past. 
The  venerable  and  stately  majesty  of  these  ruins,  where 
every  stone  seemed  to  speak  of  the  grandeur  of  other 
days,  impressed  the  imagination  of  all  who  gazed  upon 
them. 

The  day  following  our  arrival  at  Longpont  was  a 
Sunday.     Divine   service   was   conducted   at    10   a.m. 


144  A  SURGEON  IN  KHAKI 

round  the  old  broken  altar  by  our  Church  of  England 
chaplain,  and  Sir  Charles  Ferguson,  the  Divisional 
General,  read  the  lessons.  Monsignor  conducted  the 
Catholic  service  at  11.30.  Both  services  were  largely- 
attended  by  our  own  men  and  by  French  soldiers 
occupying  the  village.  In  imagination  one  could  see 
the  princely  abbots  and  the  cowled  monks  who,  during 
a  period  of  six  hundred  years,  had  chanted  their 
litanies  and  passed  in  procession  inside  the  beautiful 
abbey,  gazing  wonderingly  at  the  simple  military 
services  held  round  the  tumbled  masonry  of  the  ancient 
altar. 

After  the  services  we  spent  the  day  wandering 
through  the  old-fashioned  village  of  Longpont,  examin- 
ing its  ancient  gateways  adorned  with  the  crests  of  the 
kings  of  France,  or  strolling  through  the  fine  woods 
bordering  the  lake.  Heavy  artillery  fire  from  the 
French  batteries  could  be  heard  all  the  day.  We 
were  now  right  behind  the  French  lines. 

I  cannot  pass  from  Longpont  without  describing 
our  sleeping  quarters  on  the  night  of  our  arrival.  The 
officers  of  the  ambulance  had  to  sleep  on  the  straw 
of  an  old  stone  stable.  The  stable  looked  comfortable 
and  inviting,  and  it  was  not  till  we  had  crawled  into 
our  valises  that  the  "  fun  "  commenced.  We  had  just 
lain  down  and  blown  out  the  candles  when  we  felt 
curious  obscure  movements  under  our  valises.  Then 
a  rustling  of  straw  and  a  scampering  of  some  objects 
over  our  beds.  One  doctor  at  once  yelled  out,  "  Good 
Lord,  the  place  is  full  of   rats."    He  turned  on  his 


GOOD-BYE  TO  THE  AISNE  145 

electric  torch  and  immediately  there  was  a  wild  scurry 
and  stampede  to  cover  of  hundreds  of  rats.  The  torch 
was  turned  off,  and  after  a  little  while  the  scampering 
and  squeaking  started  again.  The  rats  were  either 
enjoying  a  game  or  were  upset  by  our  occupation  of 
their  stable.  At  one  end  of  the  stable  was  a  feeding 
trough,  and  sitting  in  a  row  on  the  edge  of  the  trough 
were  innumerable  rats.  Conspicuous  amongst  them 
was  one  enormous  fellow,  about  the  size  of  a  cat — 
some  one  said  he  was  as  big  as  a  calf — with  huge  grey 
moustaches  and  very  knowing  eyes.  This  was  un- 
doubtedly the  leader.  We  christened  him  Von  Hinden- 
berg.  Somebody  threw  a  bottle  at  him,  but  the  cunning 
old  rascal  dodged  it  by  making  a  tremendous  leap 
into  the  middle  of  the  stable  and  disappeared.  One 
young  doctor  then  said  that  he  would  rather  sleep  out 
in  the  open  than  amongst  the  rats,  and  he  carried 
his  valise  outside.  The  rest  of  us  decided  to  stop  where 
we  were,  but  we  all  pulled  our  blankets  well  over  our 
heads.  Our  childhood  horror  of  rats  still  remained, 
and  we  were  just  a  little  bit  afraid  of  them — especially 
of  Von  Hindenberg. 

From  Longpont  we  had  a  hard  gruelling  march  of 
fifteen  to  eighteen  miles  through  the  night,  and  arrived 
at  Lieux  Ristaures  at  6  a.m.  We  were  stopped  a 
long  time  on  the  road  at  the  little  village  of  Corey  by 
hundreds  of  motor  vans,  waggons,  and  buses  containing 
French  troops.  We  realised  on  this  night  what 
**  crossing  a  line  of  communication  "  actually  means. 
The  French  were  hurrying  up  heavy  reinforcements  to 

10 


146  A  SURGEON  IN  KHAKI 

strengthen  a  part  of  their  front  which  at  that  moment 
was  withstanding  a  most  resolute  German  attack,  our 
Brigade  was  moving  as  quickly  as  possible  to  another 
point  of  the  front.  The  roads  of  the  two  armies  crossed 
at  Corey,  and  of  course  one  had  to  wait  till  the  way 
was  clear.  It  all  looked  very  confusing  and  chaotic, 
but  it  was  really  very  cleverly  managed.  Our  road 
at  first  led  through  a  forest,  and  anyone  who  knows 
the  forests  of  France  knows  the  beauty  and  charm  of 
the  tall  trees.  Little  could  be  seen,  however ;  high 
overhead  one  could  make  out  a  few  stars,  but  the  track 
itself  was  in  Cimmerian  darkness.  About  2  a.m.  we 
reached  Villars  Cotterets  and  marched  through  the  old 
cobbled  streets  without  a  pause.  This  old  town  looked 
interesting,  and  one  would  have  liked  to  have  explored 
the  birthplace  of  Dumas.  After  Villars  Cotterets  our 
road  lay  through  more  open  country  and  a  grey  dawn 
made  things  clearer.  We  were  all  dog-tired  with  the 
long  march  and  the  constant  halts  ;  marching  at  night 
was  more  monotonous  and  fatiguing  than  day  marching. 
On  the  way  from  Villars  Cotterets  to  our  next 
bivouac,  Lieux  Ristaures,  at  night  time,  when  we  were 
all  feeling  very  done  up,  a  most  surprising  rumour 
reached  us.  Far  ahead  on  the  long  column  we 
suddenly  heard  distant  cheering  which  grew  in  intensity 
as  it  travelled  quickly  down  to  us  preceded  by  a 
message  shouted  from  one  to  another,  "  The  Kaiser  is 
dead.  Killed  yesterday  morning.  Pass  it  on."  When 
the  message  reached  us  we  laughed,  and  did  not  pass 
it  on.    Cries  came  out  of  the  darkness  in  front,  "  Pass 


GOOD-BYE  TO  THE  AISNE  147 

the  message  on.  It's  official.  The  Kaiser's  dead." 
So  we  passed  it  on,  and  the  cheering  travelled  back 
across  country  to  the  marching  men  far  behind.  It 
cheered  the  men  up  wonderfully ;  they  were  delighted. 
It  of  course  turned  out  to  be  a  fake,  cleverly  engineered 
by  some  wags  at  the  head  of  the  column.  Of  rumours 
there  was  no  end.  The  Crown  Prince  had  been  buried 
in  Flanders,  in  the  Argonne,  at  Soissons.  But  he 
always  got  out  of  his  grave.  We  buried  Von  Kluck, 
Hindenburg,  and  Bulow,  and  each  burial  was  related 
with  a  wealth  of  detail  that  left  nothing  to  the  imagina- 
tion. The  most  accepted  rumour  of  all,  and  one  which 
is  still  believed  by  many,  was  the  harrowing  story  of  the 
Prince  with  the  velvet  mask.  This  story  had  a  dis- 
tinctly Dumas  flavour,  and  it  had  a  great  vogue.  It 
was  related  to  me  first  on  the  Aisne  by  a  doctor  in  a 
Scottish  regiment,  who  had  had  it  from  the  Colonel,  who 
had  received  it  from  somebody  higher  up.  I,  of  course, 
passed  it  on  lower  down  the  social  scale,  and  our 
Division  knew  it  that  afternoon.  The  Crown  Prince  at 
this  time  was  said  to  be  living  in  a  richly  furnished 
cave  opposite  Reims.  On  dull  days  he  would  sit  on  a 
chair  outside  and  order  the  shelling  of  Reims  Cathedral, 
while  he  gazed  through  a  powerful  glass  at  the  falling 
masonry.  One  day  the  Prussian  Nero  was  missing 
from  his  cave,  and  the  story  then  shifts  to  Strasburg, 
whither  in  the  dead  of  night  a  wounded  officer  of 
apparently  august  rank  was  conveyed  in  a  motor-car. 
Two  powerful  Limousines  accompanied  this  car,  one 
before  and  one  behind,  and  these  were  full  of  highly 


148  A  SURGEON  IN  KHAKI 

placed  army  officers.  A  special  train  with  steam  up 
was  awaiting  the  arrival  of  the  cars,  and  as  the  wounded 
officer  was  carried  across  the  platform  on  a  stretcher, 
closely  surrounded  by  Generals,  it  was  noticed  that 
a  velvet  mask  covered  his  face.  The  mask  fell  ofi 
as  the  body  was  lifted  into  the  train  and  the  Crown 
Prince's  face  was  exposed  to  view.  I  believe  that  this 
story  was  afterwards  circulated  in  the  French  press. 
We  certainly  did  not  hear  of  His  Imperial  Highness  for 
many  months  afterwards. 

Another  rumour  circumstantially  related  by  a 
field  chaplain  and  duly  passed  on  with  the  imprimatur 
of  the  Church,  was  that  Prince  Albrecht  of  Prussia, 
son  of  the  War  Lord  himself,  had  been  wounded  and 
taken  prisoner  into  Antwerp  by  the  Belgians.  He 
was  operated  upon  by  Belgian  surgeons  in  the  presence 
of  two  German  medical  officers,  and  a  bullet  was  ex- 
tracted from  his  spine.  The  bullet  was  a  Mauser — a 
German  one.  The  Prince  died  and  his  body  was 
handed  back  to  the  Germans. 

On  the  way  to  our  next  bivouac  we  also  heard  that 
Arras  was  being  bombarded  by  the  Germans  and  that 
they  were  investing  Antwerp.  We  had  quite  a  lot  of 
war  news  to  discuss  for  the  remainder  of  our  road,  and 
until  we  pulled  our  waggons  under  the  trees  round  an 
old  mill  at  Lieux  Ristaures.  The  men  were  billeted 
in  outhouses  and  wood  sheds  belonging  to  the  mill,  and 
the  officers  were  cordially  welcomed  by  the  hospitable 
miller  and  his  kind-hearted  womenfolk.  They  prepared 
cofEee,  bread  and  butter,  and  eggs  for  us,  and  we  had  the 


GOOD-BYE  TO  THE  AISNE  149 

use  of  two  bedrooms  and  a  small  office.  A  rapid  mill 
race  ran  through  the  garden  and  under  the  kitchen 
floor  of  the  house  to  the  orchard  beyond.  When  the 
miller's  wife  wanted  fresh  water,  all  she  had  to  do  was 
to  lift  up  a  trap  on  the  kitchen  floor  and  dip  the  bucket 
into  the  tumbling  water  below.  Lieux  Ristaures  has 
a  fine  old  ruined  church  all  to  itself,  but  it  is  disfigured 
by  some  modern  attempts  to  restore  it  to  its  ancient 
grandeur,  and  these  attempts  have  spoiled  completely 
the  beauty  of  the  ruins.  At  Lieux  I  received  my  first 
mail  since  leaving  England.  It  was  now  October, 
and  I  had  left  England  in  August.  This  will  give  an 
idea  of  the  marvellous  work  of  our  Army  Post  Office, 
but  as  no  department  has  received  such  abuse  as  this 
one,  I  will  spare  its  feelings  and  say  no  more. 

A  fine  contingent  of  French  cavalry  passed  by 
on  this  day.  The  men  and  horses  looked  splendid. 
The  brass  helmets,  plumes,  and  cuirasses  caught  the 
sun's  rays,  and  we  described  the  passing  as  a  "  gorgeous 
cavalcade."  The  helmets  and  cuirasses,  however,  seem 
to  belong  to  old-world  armies,  and  look  stagey  amongst 
the  simpler  uniforms  of  this  age. 

We  stopped  two  nights  at  the  quaint  old  farm  of 
Lieux  with  its  rushing  mill  race,  and  at  three  o'clock 
on  the  second  day  marched  to  Bethisy  St.  Martin,  where 
we  had  an  excellent  tea  at  a  cosy  house  in  the  town 
— butter,  eggs,  bread,  cold  beef,  and  pickles.  We  sat 
round  a  table  with  a  tablecloth  !  our  first  since 
August.  The  good  woman  who  prepared  the  meal 
made  us  very  welcome.    We  slept  on  the  floor  of  the 


150  A  SURGEON  IN  KHAKI 

Mairie  in  the  centre  of  the  town  till  5  a.m.,  when  we 
again  took  the  road  to  Santines  and  Verberie,  passing 
near  Senlis.  Verberie  showed  many  evidences  of  the 
Prussian  sign  manual  —  shelled  houses  and  smashed 
walls.  We  reached  the  river  Oise  at  10  a.m.  and 
crossed  by  a  pontoon  bridge,  as  the  fine  old  stone  bridge 
had  been  blown  up ;  marched  through  Rivecourt  and 
bivouacked  for  three  hours  by  the  wayside.  It  was  a 
glorious  morning,  the  going  was  good,  and  everybody 
was  cheerful  and  looked  very  hard  and  fit.  At  Halte 
de  Meux,  where  was  a  railway  siding  with  troop  trains, 
we  received  orders  to  embark  on  one  of  the  trains  for  a 
destination  unknown. 

The  train  by  which  we  were  to  travel  had  to  carry 
the  Norfolk  Regiment  also.  When  the  Norfolks  were 
all  on  board  we  found  that  there  was  not  room  enough 
left  for  the  Field  Ambulance,  with  its  ambulance 
waggons,  supply  waggons,  horses,  and  men.  C  sec- 
tion, with  its  waggons  and  equipment,  had  to  be  left 
behind,  and  get  on  as  best  it  could  by  some  other  train ; 
BO  we  of  C  section  took  the  road  to  Compiegne. 
We  reached  this  charming  and  historic  city  in  the  dark, 
and  found  that  there  was  no  train  for  us.  We  crossed 
the  Oise  again  on  a  bridge  of  moored  barges,  as  the 
magnificent  stone  bridge  spanning  the  Oise  here  was 
in  ruins,  destroyed  by  the  French  during  the  German 
advance.  The  night  was  desperately  cold  ;  we  slept, 
or  tried  to  sleep,  on  the  boulevard  alongside  the  river 
bank,  but  had  to  get  up  and  march  about  to  keep  up 
the  circulation.     The  men  lit  a  fire  under  the  trees  of 


GOOD-BYE  TO  THE  AISNE  151 

the  boulevard  and  sat  round  it  all  night.  There  was 
no  reason  really  why  we  should  have  slept  out  on  the 
open  boulevard,  for  there  was  a  large,  half-empty 
infantry  barracks  about  20  yards  away  and  the  French 
offered  us  the  use  of  it  for  the  night.  Our  commanding 
officer,  however,  decided  otherwise,  and  consequently 
we  passed  a  most  miserable  night. 

Compiegne,  situated  on  the  Oise,  is  one  of  the  most 
charming  and  fascinating  cities  in  France.  In  the 
palace.  Napoleon  Bonaparte  and  the  Empress  Marie 
Louise,  Louis  Philippe,  and  Napoleon  iii.  frequently 
resided.  The  tower  where  Joan  of  Arc  was  imprisoned, 
the  sixteenth-century  Hotel  de  Ville  with  its  belfry 
tower,  and  the  old  church  of  St.  Jacques  well  repay  a 
visit.  The  city  appeared  on  the  surface  to  be  leading 
a  normal  life  except  for  the  large  number  of  French 
soldiers  and  the  many  Red  Cross  Hospitals.  Compiegne 
was  at  this  time  a  favourite  afternoon  call  for  the 
Taubes,  and  they  frequently  dropped  bombs,  meant  no 
doubt  for  the  old  palace.  Old  historic  chateaux, 
cathedrals,  and  churches  have  a  strange  fascination  for 
German  artillerists  and  bomb-droppers. 

I  must  now  relate  an  episode  of  some  interest  that 
occurred  on  the  march  up  to  Compiegne  —  nothing 
less  than  seeing  General  Joffre,  the  Commander-in-Chief 
of  the  Allied  Armies.  I  had  dropped  behind  from  my 
ambulance,  and  had  given  my  horse  to  my  groom  to 
lead  behind  my  section  on  the  march.  A  marching 
regiment  was  coming  up  behind  us,  and  as  I  knew  the 
doctor  I  waited  till  the  regiment  came  up,  and  then 


152  A  SURGEON  IN  KHAKI 

joined  in  and    walked  alongside   my  medical  friend. 
A  large  chateau  was  situated  on  the  side  of  the  road 
some  distance  on,  and  as  we  came  up  we  saw  a  large 
group  of  French  officers  standing  at  the  old  gateway. 
A  whisper  travelled  rapidly  down  the  line  that  this 
was  the  French   Headquarters   Staff  and  that   Joffre 
himself  was  there.     At  once  the  subalterns  "  tightened 
up  "  the  marching  men,  heads  were  lifted,  shoulders 
squared,  the  step  became  smarter  and  rhythmic.     Low 
muttered  commands  snapped  out :    "  Smartly  there," 
"  By  your  right,"  "  Keep  your  distance,  men."    As  we 
came  abreast  of  the  group  at  the  gateway,  the  sharp, 
clear  command  rang  out   from  each   platoon  officer, 
"  Eyes  right !  "  the  officers  saluted  smartly,  and  with  a 
parade  swing  the  fine  regiment  marched  past.     I  gazed 
long  and  interestedly  at  the  officer  at  the  gateway  who 
took    our   salute.     He   was   easily   distinguishable   as 
Joffre,  for  he  was  exactly  like  the  pictures  seen  of  him 
in  every  shop  window  in  France,  or  rather  the  pictures 
were  faithful  representations   of  Joffre.     When  I  got 
past,  I  stepped  out  of  the  company  I  was  marching  with 
on  to  the  far  side  of  the  road,  and  while  the  remainder 
of  the  regiment  was  still  passing  by  I  had  a  good  long 
look  at  the  man  who  means  so  much  to  France,  and  in 
whom   France    is    so    sublimely    confident.     He    was 
dressed  in  a  well-fitting  but  easy  blue  tunic,  with  stars 
on  the  sleeves  near  the  cuff  indicating  his  rank  of 
General,  and  with  a  gold  band  on  the  shoulders,  the 
familiar  red  French  trousers,  and  black  polished  cavalry 
jack-boots.     On  his  head  he  had  a  gold-braided  hejpi. 


4 


GOOD-BYE  TO  THE  AISNE  153 

Joffre  is  of  middle  height,  strong  and  sturdily  made, 
broad-shouldered  and  with  a  figure  stout  and  heavy. 
His  face  is  full,  genial,  and  attractive,  browned  like  the 
faces  of  men  who  have  lived  and  worked  in  the  tropics, 
and  with  a  white  moustache  which  gave  a  somewhat 
benevolent  air.  He  was  evidently  interested  in  the 
march  past  of  our  regiment,  for  he  walked  three  or  four 
paces  forward  from  his  staff  and  towards  us,  and  seemed 
to  take  in  all  the  details  of  men  and  equipment  as  his 
eye  scanned  up  and  down.  His  salute  was  given  with 
the  careful  exactness  and  ceremony  always  bestowed 
by  the  French  upon  this  act,  which  the  British  officer 
goes  through  so  casually. 

Joffre  did  not  look  the  dazzling  military  leader 
of  romance,  but  he  looked  very  business-like.  Here 
was  not  the  lean  figure  and  the  hawk  nose  of  a 
Wellington,  the  glittering  swagger  of  a  Murat,  or  the 
inscrutable  pose  of  the  little  Grey  Man  of  Destiny. 
Yet  this  broad,  homely,  comfortable,  and  democratic 
figure  standing  by  the  roadside  and  carefully  observing 
us,  is  the  most  powerful  man  in  France  to-day — the 
man  against  whom  no  political  criticism  is  levelled, 
the  idol  of  the  soldiers,  and  in  whom  the  people  of 
France  have  such  a  simple  faith.  He  is  called  "  Our 
Joffre,"  and  the  possessive  phrase  indicates  the  pride 
the  people  and  army  feel  in  him.  The  French  will 
tell  the  following  story,  which  has  gone  the  rounds, 
with  great  gusto.  After  a  big  battle  in  Poland,  Von 
Hindenberg's  Chief  of  Staff  contracted  a  "  political 
illness  "'  and  was  sent  to  Berlin  to  recover  his  health. 


154  A  SUEGEON  IN  KHAKI 

The  Kaiser  wired  to  Hindenberg,  "  Wliom  do  you 
nominate  for  your  new  Chief  of  Staff  ?  "  The  reply 
came  back,  "  Would  like  Joffre." 

French  officers  at  the  front  will  tell  you  that  Joffre 
is  an  Aristides  the  Just ;  that  he  ordered  the  shooting 
of  four  French  Generals  early  in  the  war  because  they 
were  traitors  to  France,  and  that  he  has  "  retired  " 
all  the  old  Generals  who  are  slow  to  think  and  too  fond 
of  cocktails  to  be  good  campaigners ;  that  he  speedily 
rewards  ability  and  initiative  by  promotions  on  the 
field,  and  is  merciless  on  an  officer — no  matter  of  what 
rank — who  shows  incompetence. 

Jofire  was  met  early  in  the  War  of  the  Trenches 
by  an  old  friend,  who  greeted  him  with,  "  Well,  how  are 
things  going  ?  "  The  General's  eyes  twinkled  humor- 
ously as  he  replied,  "  Laissez-moi  faire,  je  les  grignotte  " 
("  Leave  me  alone,  I  am  nibbling  them  ").  A  French 
surgeon  who  knows  Joffre,  told  me  that  he  is  a  good 
sleeper,  and  that  during  the  worst  days  he  never  missed 
one  night's  sleep.  It  was  Shakespeare's  Caesar  who 
said,  I  think,  to  Mark  Antony  : 

"  Let  me  have  men  about  me  that  are  fat, 
Sleek-hsaded  men  and  such  as  sleep  o'  nights." 

Jof?re  has  never  interested  himself  in  politics,  and 
he  is  one  of  the  few  great  Frenchmen  who  have  avoided 
the  glamour  of  the  political  stage  on  which  so  many 
ephemeral  reputations  have  been  made  and  so  many 
good  ones  blasted.  Jofire,  like  most  men  who  '*  do  " 
things,  is  a  silent  man.  I  am  glad  that  I  have  seen 
"  Joffre  le  taciturne"  and  been  privileged  to  salute  him. 


GOOD-BYE  TO  THE  AISNE  155 

JofEre  and  French  are  both  over  sixty  years  of  age. 
Pau,  the  one-armed  French  General,  known  as  the 
"  Thruster,"  is  a  veteran  of  the  War  of  1870.  Gallieni, 
the  "  rock  of  Paris,"  the  General  destined  to  hold  Paris 
when  Von  Kluck  was  bearing  so  hastily  down  on  the 
capital,  is  an  old  man.  Von  Hindenberg,  the  pride  of 
Germany,  is  sixty-seven.  Von  Kluck,  the  Commander 
of  the  right  wing  of  the  German  Army,  who  so  furiously 
hacked  his  way  almost  to  the  gates  of  Paris,  and  was 
rolled  back  in  a  crushing  defeat,  is  over  seventy  years 
of  age.  Napoleon  and  Wellington  were  forty-six  at 
Waterloo.  Nelson  died  at  forty-seven.  Ney  was 
thirty-five  when  he  was  shot.  Von  Boon,  the  German 
Minister  of  War  in  the  Franco-Prussian  War,  was 
sixty-seven  when  the  campaign  began.  Bismarck  was 
then  about  fifty-five,  and  Von  Moltke  was  an  old  man — 
a  septuagenarian.  Aie  we  too  old  at  forty  ?  No.  I 
knew  a  chaplain  at  the  front  who  was  fifty-eight  years 
of  age.  In  times  of  peace  he  took  very  little  physical 
exercise ;  he  was  a  student,  a  scholar,  and  an  author. 
I  have  seen  this  chaplain  march  mile  after  mile  in  rain 
and  mud,  and  under  a  broiling  sun  on  dusty  roads,  and 
he  was  then  fitter  than  he  ever  had  been  before,  and 
could  eat  bully  beef  and  hard  biscuits  like  the  hungriest 
youngster.  He  had  the  face  and  eyes  and  voice  of  a 
young  man,  and  he  laughed  like  a  merry  boy. 

We  left  Compiegne  at  3  p.m. ;  our  horses  and 
waggons  were  entrained  and  officers  and  men  got  into 
an  old  and  evil-looking  "  100th  "  class  carriage  and 
again    set    off  for  a    destination  unknown.     No  one 


156  A  SURGEON  IN  KHAKI 

seemed  to  know  where  we  were  off  to,  but  the  entraining 
and  route  were  really  well  carried  out  by  the  staff  of 
the  railway.  At  Amiens  we  received  orders  to  get  off 
at  Abbeville,  and  after  a  tiring  journey  we  reached 
the  mouth  of  the  Somme  at  2  a.m.  The  waggons  and 
horses  were  quickly  taken  out,  and  in  the  dark  we 
trekked  through  Abbeville  across  open  country  to 
Gapennes,  nine  miles  away.  Here  we  met  the  13th 
Field  Ambulance,  temporarily  quartered  in  a  most 
luxurious  chateau.  Our  little  party  was  dead  beat 
for  want  of  sleep,  and  some  of  us  lay  down  on  the  floor 
of  the  village  schoolhouse  and  slept  heavily  for  three 
hours.  The  school  was  not  "  in ""  that  day,  otherwise 
I  am  sure  the  children  would  have  been  highly  enter- 
tained to  see  three  weary  doctors  in  khaki  soundly 
slumbering  on  the  floor. 

Still  sleepy,  we  again  had  to  take  the  road  and  tramp 
the  weary  miles.  A  large  number  of  French  ambulances 
passed  us  going  back  to  Abbeville,  and  we  heard  that 
there  had  been  some  very  hard  fighting  on  the  French 
left  wing. 

The  13th  British  Infantry  Brigade  caught  up  with 
us,  and  we  pulled  aside  to  let  them  pass.  The  officers 
told  us  that  they  were  in  a  hurry — ^that  the  French 
had  moved  up  a  lot  of  troops  to  the  south  of  Lille  and 
that  the  whole  British  Army  was  to  form  up  on  the  left 
of  the  French,  and  that  terrific  fighting  was  going  on 
round  Lille  and  Arras,  and  French  and  German  cavalry 
screens  had  met  farther  west. 

At  5  p.m.  we  found  the  headquarters  of  our  am- 


COMl'IEGNE,   sHOWIM,    THE    IIKOKE.N    BKllH.E. 


Ambulance  crossing  the  Oise  on  a  Pontoon  hkidge. 


GOOD-BYE  TO  THE  AISNE  157 

bulance  located  in  a  pig-sty  of  a  farmhouse  and  were 
told  that  it  was  to  move  of?  shortly  and  march  through 
the  night.  All  the  romance  of  night  marching  had  gone 
for  us,  and  we  wanted  to  sleep.  We  were  tired  of  walk- 
ing, tired  of  everything,  tired  of  the  war,  and  vaguely 
wondered  why  we  had  been  so  foolish  as  to  leave 
England, 

So  at  nine  o'clock  on  the  same  evening  off  we  marched 
again  into  the  outer  darkness  of  a  depressing,  gloomy 
night,  and  we  were  on  our  feet  through  the  whole  of  it. 
Most  of  the  time  we  were  standing  by  the  roadside 
waiting  for  the  congestion  of  the  long  columns  in  front 
to  ease  off.  Sometimes  we  would  sit  in  a  ditch  by  the 
roadside  and  go  off  to  sleep,  only  to  be  wakened  a  minute 
after  by  the  cry,  "  Forward !  " 

About  6  a.m.  we  reached  Croisette.  The  name 
sounds  attractive,  but  it  really  was  a  mean-looking 
farmhouse  at  a  cross-road  ;  however,  we  got  a  very  good 
breakfast  of  coffee,  bread  and  fresh  butter,  and  eggs. 
The  farmer's  wife  was  anxious  to  know  how  the  war 
was  going  on.  She  rarely  got  news,  but  heard  lots  of 
rumours.  Everybody  appeared  to  be  hearing  rumours 
as  well  as  the  British  Army.  We  told  her  that  we 
had  killed  thousands  of  Germans  and  were  on  the  way 
to  slaughter  those  that  were  still  left ;  and  as  this 
appealed  to  the  patriotic  instincts  of  the  farm  lady, 
she  was  very  satisfied  with  our  latest  war  bulletin. 

In  three  nights  and  three  days  I  had  had  only  three 
hours'  sleep,  and  had  got  to  a  stage  when  I  marched, 
rode,  and  ate  my  food  in  a  sort  of  subconscious  state  of 


158  A  SURGEON  IN  KHAKI 

reflex  animation.  In  the  late  afternoon  we  rumbled 
into  Thielyce,  and  tried  fruitlessly  to  find  some  billets 
for  our  officers  and  men.  The  place  was  full  of  small 
cottages,  and  the  cottagers  eagerly  offered  each  to  take 
in  one  or  two  men ;  but  we  could  not  allow  this,  as 
in  the  event  of  sudden  orders  through  the  night  we 
might  not  be  able  to  get  all  our  men  together.  We 
always  lived  in  one  large  party  or  habitation  like  gipsies. 
One  old  woman  of  the  village  was  extremely  anxious 
to  have  some  khaki  soldiers  stop  at  her  house.  She 
was  curious  to  observe  the  English  at  close  quarters, 
as  she  had  never  seen  one  before  and  had  heard  that 
they  were  such  terrible  fighting  men.  Our  looks  belied 
our  reputation;  we  looked  harmless,  very  dirty  and 
dusty,  but  very  tame. 

The  ambulance  was  parked  in  a  field  off  the  village 
street  and  inside  a  delightful  clump  of  trees.  Too  tired 
to  eat,  I  lay  down  as  I  was,  armed  cap-a-pie,  at  the 
foot  of  a  tall  umbrageous  tree  and  slept  a  dreamless  sleep. 

At  five  o'clock  next  morning  the  sharp  call  of  our 
O.C.,  "  Field  Ambulance,  turn  out  !  "  aroused  me 
again  to  a  world  of  marching  men  and  war ;  but  I  was 
my  own  man  again  and  optimistic,  and  no  longer 
wondered  why  I  had  left  England. 

We  had  a  picnic  breakfast  sitting  on  the  grass  in 
the  field,  and  at  seven  o'clock  received  orders  to  move 
off  :  we  were  to  follow  the  13th  and  14th  Brigades  into 
Bethune  and  on  to  La  Bassee,  and  be  prepared  for  big 
casualties,  as  a  stern  battle  was  expected  and  the 
two  brigades  would  probably  be  in  action  before  mid- 


GOOD-BYE  TO  THE  AISNE  159 

day.  There  was  a  feeling  of  expectancy  in  the  air 
that  morning.  All  the  rumours  about  a  big  battle 
and  all  our  quick  movements  and  marchings  by  night 
seemed  to  presage  a  clash  at  arms.  We  hoped  for 
old  England's  sake  that  we  would  do  well ;  our  pulses 
were  stirred  and  we  were  all  very  much  alive. 

We  moved  off  smartly  down  a  fine  old  tree-lined  road 
towards  the  sound  of  heavy  guns  which  had  been  in 
action  from  daybreak.  On  our  way  we  passed  thou- 
sands of  hurrpng  refugees  going  towards  St.  Pol. 
Without  stopping,  our  ambulances  growled  their  way 
through  the  ancient  cobble-stoned  town  on  to  the 
big  high  road  leading  to  Bethune.  Here  again  we 
met  thousands  of  refugees,  nearly  all  young  men  of 
military  age.  We  were  curious  to  know  why  these 
men  were  not  in  the  French  Army,  and  a  French  officer 
told  us  that  they  belonged  to  Lille  and  the  surrounding 
districts,  aild  had  been  ordered  out  by  the  French 
authorities  to  report  at  military  depots  farther  south 
for  training  and  active  service.  These  "  mobilisables  " 
would  have  been  good  captures  for  the  Germans  and  a 
considerable  loss  to  the  French  Army.  Amongst  them 
I  counted  twenty-seven  priests  in  black  caps  and 
cassocks ;  they,  too,  were  on  their  way  to  shoulder  a 
French  rifle.  One  young  man  I  noticed  carrying  a 
white  rabbit  in  a  bird-cage  in  one  hand  and  a  bundle  of 
clothes  and  boots  in  the  other ;  he  was  saving  his 
rabbit  from  a  German  pie.  Another  fellow  was  walking 
along  the  road  in  carpet  slippers  and  with  a  pair  of 
heavy  boots  suspended  round  his  neck. 


160  A  SURGEON  IN  KHAKI 

The  poor  refugees  looked  tired,  disappointed,  and 
depressed,  and  no  wonder.  It  is  hard  suddenly  to 
have  to  leave  your  home,  your  friends,  your  wife  and 
children,  and  to  go  away  with  a  gnawing  fear  that 
they  will  be  in  the  power  of  an  arrogant  and  brutal 
enemy  who  knows  no  mercy.     We  pitied  them  all. 

After  all,  there  was  no  battle  that  day.  We  halted 
on  the  way  some  time,  and  then  were  rapidly  marched 
forward  towards  Bethune.  We  were  now  passing 
through  coal-mining  towns  and  villages,  and  they 
recalled  very  much  the  villages  and  houses  round  coal 
areas  of  Scotland  like  Falkirk.  The  type  of  coal-miner 
and  the  coal-miner's  cottage  are  very  much  the  same 
all  over  the  world.  These  people  did  not  seem  very 
curious  or  interested  in  our  passage  through  their 
villages  or  towns  —  simply  gave  us  a  glance  at 
passing. 

That  night  we  bivouacked  in  a  chateau  near 
Bethune  and  on  the  main  road.  We  could  not  get  any 
farther  forward,  for  the  road  in  front  was  blocked  up 
by  big  guns  and  little  guns,  ammunition  columns, 
engineer  battalions,  and  infantry.  We  saw  a  number 
of  waggons  loaded  up  with  big  pontoon  boats,  and 
speculated  that  we  must  be  near  water.  So  we  were. 
We  were  near  the  famous  canal,  but  the  boats  were 
intended  for  farther  west. 

After  tea  in  the  kitchen  of  the  big  chateau,  some 
of  us  got  on  our  horses  and  rode  into  the  city  of  Bethune, 
now  full  of  troops,  and  the  bustle  of  warlike  preparations. 
There  were  all  nationalities  in  the  streets  of  Bethune 


GOOD-BYE  TO  THE  AISNE  161 

that  night.  Arabs  in  flowing  robes  were  on  horseback 
in  the  square,  looking  strangely  out  of  place  in  this 
old  western  city.  Spahis,  French  Grenadiers,  French 
gunners,  Alpine  Chasseurs  in  round  cloth  caps,  Belgian, 
French,  and  British  officers,  and,  of  course,  Mr.  Thomas 
Atkins,  quite  at  home,  smoking  a  Woodbine  cigarette 
and  being  petted  and  openly  admired  by  the  women 
and  the  girls.  We  heard  here  that  Antwerp  had 
fallen,  and  thought  the  news  very  serious.  It  was 
quite  unexpected,  as  we  had  not  known  that  it  had 
been  strongly  besieged. 

At  five  o^clock  next  morning  we  were  on  the  road 
in  a  dense  fog,  and  after  going  forward  about  half  a 
mile  were  told  to  bivouac  in  a  field  near  the  road 
till  some  ammunition  columns  and  guns  got  past  us. 
This  we  did,  but  Monsignor  wandered  off  alone  farther 
down  the  road.  We  missed  him  for  a  long  time,  and 
when  he  did  turn  up  he  told  us  that  he  had  been 
arrested  as  a  spy  by  the  French.  Two  or  three  French 
sentries  with  fixed  bayonets  surrounded  him,  and  I 
don't  know  what  arguments  Monsignor  used  to  con- 
vince them  that  he  was  an  Englishman.  But  he  came 
back  smiling,  and  was  evidently  much  tickled  over  the 
whole  affair.  He  was  the  only  officer  in  the  British 
Army,  and  in  fact  the  only  member  of  the  Expeditionary 
Force,  who  was  not  in  khaki  uniform,  and  it  is  no  wonder 
that  the  French  thought  it  odd  that  he  should  be 
strolling  about  "on  his  own,"  looking  at  British  guns 
and  equipment.     We  were  all  delighted,  of  course,  at 

Monsignor's  arrest,  and  regretted  that  we  had  not  been 
II 


162  A  SURGEON  IN  KHAKI 

there  with  our  cameras.  We  were  quite  determined, 
if  he  were  again  arrested,  to  disown  all  knowledge  of 
him,  just  to  see  what  the  French  would  do  next. 

After  some  hours'  wait  in  the  field  we  pushed  on  again 
through  Bethune  towards  the  canal.  This  canal  was  to 
us  then  simply  a  canal  and  nothing  more,  but  along  this 
belt  of  slowly  flowing  water  was  to  be  waged  very  soon 
one  of  the  most  terrific  and  sanguinary  struggles  recorded 
in  history. 

As  we  approached  the  canal  the  Norfolk  Regiment 
came  up,  and  we  drew  to  the  side  of  the  road  to  give 
them  the  right  of  way.  I  sat  on  a  heap  of  stones  by  the 
roadside  and  watched  this  fine  regiment  marching 
smartly  past,  and  I  remember  thinking  curiously  that 
probably  that  same  day,  perhaps  within  a  few  hours, 
many  of  these  fine  fellows  would  have  fallen  and  many 
would  be  maimed. 

It  is  an  impressive  thing  to  see  a  regiment  going 
into  action.  The  Norfolks  knew  that  they  would  very 
soon  be  in  the  thick  of  things,  as  they  were  marching 
on  the  sound  of  the  heavy  guns,  but  they  looked  perfectly 
cheerful  and  unconcerned.  That  night  several  of  them 
passed  under  my  hands  on  the  operating  table,  and  many 
more  were  lying  very  still  on  the  wet  earth  not  far  away. 

The  King's  Own  Scottish  Borderers  passed  us  earlier 

in  the  morning,  and   with   them  was  Dr.  D as 

regimental  surgeon.     D was  one  of  the  first  medical 

officers  over  the  Aisne,  and  he  put  through  some  splendid 
service  for  the  wounded  under  a  heavy  fire,  and  was 
mentioned  in  dispatches.    Four  days  afterwards  poor 


GOOD-BYE  TO  THE  AISNE  163 

D and  his  stretcher-bearers  were  captured  and  sent 

as  prisoners  to  Germany. 

At  11  a.m.  we  crossed  the  narrow  bridge  spanning 
the  now  famous  canal  leading  up  towards  La  Bassee, 
and  installed  our  ambulance  headquarters  in  the  Chateau 
Gorre  on  the  road  to  Festubert.  The  chateau  had  up 
till  that  day  been  the  headquarters  of  a  French  cavalry 
general,  and  it  was  a  most  palatially  fitted-up  place. 

Our  long  journey  was  over.  We  had  left  the  Aisne 
and  taken  up  a  new  position  near  La  Bassee  in  the  north 
of  France.  We  were  now  in  a  countryside  destined 
soon  to  become  the  theatre  of  an  intense  and  sanguinary 
struggle.  It  was  here  that  our  men  withstood  the  shock 
of  the  most  determined  and  relentless  head-on  attacks 
of  the  enemy.  This  was  one  of  the  roads  to  Calais,  and 
we  held  the  gate. 


CHAPTER   XIV. 
THE  LA  BASS:fiE  ROAD  AT  CHITEAU  GORRE. 

As  the  fighting  is  still  going  on  round  this  district  any 
description  of  military  positions  or  dispositions  would  be 
quite  out  of  place. 

Our  headquarters  at  Chateau  Gorre  was  a  beautiful 
two-storied  stone  building,  quite  modern,  and  well 
arranged  in  every  way  with  spacious  lofty  halls,  dining- 
rooms,  lounges,  bedrooms,  and  bathrooms. 

When  we  took  up  our  quarters  here  we  knew  that  we 
would  soon  be  busy  with  wounded,  and  the  central 
hall  of  the  chateau  was  at  once  prepared  for  their  re- 
ception. Two  larger  rooms  opening  to  the  right  and  to 
the  left  off  the  hall  were  covered  with  mattresses  and 
blankets,  hot  water  was  prepared,  operation  table 
opened  out,  and  towels  and  instruments  made  ready. 
Just  when  we  had  about  finished  preparations  our  first 
arrivals,  four  men  of  the  Dragoon  Guards,  turned  up. 
They  had  been  wounded  slightly  in  the  arms  and  face 
while  advancing  along  the  road  towards  Festubert. 
Twenty  minutes  later  fifty-four  wounded  arrived, 
Bedfords  and  Cheshires,  most  of  whom  had  slight 
wounds  of  the  arms  and  hands  and  scalp,  and  were  able 
to  walk. 


THE  LA  BASS:6E  ROAD  165 

Urgent  orders  came  in  to  send  six  ambulance 
waggons  down  the  Festubert  road.  These  were  sent 
forward  with  stretcher  parties  and  six  medical  officers. 
This  was  the  beginning  of  a  very  ''  bloody  ''  night.  All 
that  evening  and  all  night  wounded  were  continually 
coming  in.  I  was  on  duty  in  the  chateau  as  surgeon 
till  4  a.m.,  when  another  medical  officer  relieved  me. 
Red  Cross  ambulances  were  driven  up  frequently  and 
took  away  all  our  lightly  wounded  and  those  fit  to  travel- 
These  were  sent  to  Bethune,  and  thus  the  chateau  was 
kept  from  becoming  too  congested.  These  Red  Cross 
ambulances  had  been  provided  and  equipped  by  British 
residents  in  Paris ;  they  were  splendidly  handled, 
and  proved  a  godsend  to  us.  Many  of  them  were 
converted  "  Ford  cars,"  and  could  carry  six  lying-down 
patients  and  one  sitting  up  beside  the  driver.  The 
stretchers  were  swung  on  trestles  and  chains,  and  fitted 
easily.  Our  ambulance  waggons  and  stretcher-bearers 
were  out  all  night  and  had  a  very  dangerous  time  at  the 
front.  At  10.30  next  morning  the  heavy  artillery  firing 
eased  ofi,  and  at  eleven  o'clock  occurred  one  of  those 
extraordinary  lulls  when  all  the  big  guns  and  little  guns 
cease  firing  and  everything  seems  strangely  silent. 

A  chaplain  arrived  at  the  chateau  in  the  morning 
and  read  the  service  over  one  of  our  wounded  who  had 
died  during  the  night  from  a  broken  spine.  The  grave 
was  dug  near  the  flower  garden  at  the  foot  of  the  lawn, 
and  many  graves  were  dug  there  in  the  three  succeeding 
terrible  weeks  of  fierce,  bitter  fighting.  On  this  day  the 
Dorsets,  who  were  in  reserve  and  quartered  near  the  gate 


166  A  SURGEON  IN  KHAKI 

of  our  chateau,  went  into  action  and  were  badly  handled 
by  the  Germans,  suffering  severe  losses,  chiefly  from  a 
concealed  German  machine-gun  opening  on  to  them 
from  near  the  canal.  The  Devons  had  to  move  up 
later  to  support  the  Dorsets,  and  did  it  in  a  most  gallant 
style.  About  two  o'clock  in  the  afternoon  we  had  a 
great  number  of  casualties ;  our  waggons  were  constantly 
arriving,  unloading  their  wounded,  and  setting  off  again 
for  the  front. 

The  Red  Cross  ambulances  were  evacuating  the  light 
cases  as  speedily  as  possible  to  Bethune,  but  we  very 
soon  had  all  our  rooms  full  of  wounded  men  and  were 
working  at  high  pressure  at  the  operation  table.  At 
three  o'clock  the  artillery  firing  was  tremendously  heavy, 
and  every  gun  was  in  action.  The  chateau  shook  with 
the  explosions ;  every  window  rattled  and  some  were 
broken.  The  concussion  of  the  air  outside  and  the 
terrible  din  were  distinctly  unpleasant.  Then  the 
cracking  of  the  rifle-firing  became  audible,  and  reports 
came  in  that  our  men  were  retiring.  Shortly  after 
an  imperative  order  was  sent  to  our  O.C.  telling  him  to 
evacuate  the  chateau  at  once  with  his  wounded  and 
move  off  the  Field  Ambulance  to  the  other  side  of  the 
canal.  The  horses  were  at  once  put  in  the  various  supply 
waggons.  We  had  only  two  ambulance  waggons  at  the 
time,  as  the  rest  were  at  the  front  collecting  wounded. 
Some  Red  Cross  ambulances,  however,  turned  up  and 
took  away  twelve  of  our  most  serious  cases.  All  the 
lightly  wounded  were  sent  under  charge  of  R.A.M.C. 
orderlies   to  walk  back  across  the  canal  to  Bethune. 


THE  LA  BASSEE  ROAD  167 

Some  men  with  shrapnel  wounds  of  thigh  and  leg  also 
had  to  walk  and  get  along  somehow,  and  miserable  and 
pitiable  these  poor  fellows  looked,  limping  and  struggling 
along  the  muddy  road  in  their  bloody  bandages.  Things 
looked  pretty  serious  at  this  moment,  and  I  was  ordered 
to  mount  and  gallop  ahead  to  direct  the  waggons  on  to 
the  right  road  and  to  "  round  up  "  our  poor  wounded 
fellows  who  were  trudging  along  the  roads.  To  make 
matters  worse,  heavy  rain  came  on.  Big  artillery 
practice  always  brought  down  the  rain.  I  soon  reached 
the  head  of  our  column  and  gave  the  sergeant  the 
necessary  instructions. 

On  the  side  of  the  road  there  was  an  old  inn  or 
estaminet.  I  pulled  my  horse  up  here  and  put  two 
men  on  duty  to  stop  all  our  walking  wounded  and 
collect  them  into  the  front  room  of  the  inn.  I  went 
inside  and  arranged  with  the  woman  in  charge  to  light 
a  big  fire,  make  some  tea,  and  have  bread  and  butter 
and  anything  else  she  could  get  ready  for  our  men,  and 
to  do  it  quickly.  She  set  to  work  at  once.  I  had  then 
to  gallop  back  to  the  Chateau  Gorre  to  help  get  away 
the  serious  cases  and  to  collect  any  empty  lorry  or 
waggon  I  could  get.  When  I  reached  the  chateau  the 
O.C.  told  me  that  we  had  moved  up  some  reserves, 
and  the  Germans  in  their  turn  were  now  retiring.  He 
said  that  he  would  now  keep  his  serious  cases  at  the 
chateau  till  motor  ambulances  arrived.  I  was  ordered 
to  gallop  again  to  the  head  of  our  column  and  turn 
back  all  the  supply  waggons,  equipment  carts,  and 
water    carts,  but    to    send    the    ambulance    waggons 


168  A  SURGEON  IN  KHAKI 

with  their  wounded  on  to  Bethune.  It  was  now  dark, 
and  after  incredible  trouble  my  mission  was  accom- 
plished and  our  drivers  were  already  driving  the  carts 
back.  I  now  looked  in  at  "  mine  inn."  All  our  wounded 
fellows  were  sitting  round  the  fire  having  tea, 
bread  and  butter,  and  slices  of  cold  boiled  ham,  and 
looked  very  happy.  I  asked  the  woman  of  the  inn 
what  the  cost  was,  and  she  only  charged  me  ten  francs. 
I  never  parted  with  money  so  willingly.  The  privilege 
of  being  able  to  do  something  for  these  good  lads,  and 
their  appreciation  of  the  hot  fire  and  the  hot  tea,  was 
something  I  would  not  willingly  forget. 

The  Chateau  Gorre  was  once  more  re-established 
as  an  advanced  ambulance  dressing  station,  and  con- 
tinued so  for  over  three  weeks.  It  was  situated  right 
inside  the  shell  zone,  and  had  many  "  alarms  and 
excursions "  during  this  period,  but  none  quite  so 
dramatic  and  sensational  as  that  recorded  above.  The 
work  done  by  this  ambulance  at  the  chateau  was 
extraordinarily  good  and  useful,  and  owing  to  its  very 
advanced  position  so  close  to  the  fighting  line  it  was 
able  to  receive  and  treat  the  wounded  very  soon  after 
they  had  been  hit. 

When  the  order  came  to  evacuate  at  the  time  of 
the  incident  related  above,  the  instructions  given  to 
our  Commanding  Officer  were  to  get  out  all  the  lightly 
wounded  cases  and  to  leave  the  serious  cases  in  the 
chateau.  Our  O.C.  was  a  soldier,  and  he  said  that  if 
he  had  to  go  he  would  get  all  the  wounded  out,  and 
that  he  would  be  ''  damned  if  he  would  leave  any 


THE  LA  BASS^E  ROAD  169 

seriously  wounded   man  in  the  hands   of  the  b 


Germans."  Strong  language  at  times  is  sweet  music, 
and  our  O.C.  was  a  man  of  his  word.  The  wounded 
men  heard  this  story,  and  I  heard  some  of  them  talking 
about  it  later  to  each  other.  The  O.C.  took  a  high 
place  in  their  estimation. 

At  the  chateau  I  was  talking  to  a  young  lieutenant 

who  had  just   received  a   commission  in  the  D 

Regiment.  He  had  served  as  a  private  at  the  beginning 
of  the  war  and  won  his  sergeant's  stripes  for  general 
good  conduct  and  gallantry  under  fiie,  and  was  then 
given  a  commission  in  another  regiment.  He  was  hard 
put  for  a  smoke,  and  could  not  get  any  cigarettes,  but 
fortunately  I  was  able  to  give  him  some. 

Ten  days  later,  at  Bethune,  he  was  brought  in  to 
me  with  a  crushed  arm,  hanging  by  only  a  thread  of 
muscle  to  the  shoulder,  and  I  had  to  amputate  it  under 
chloroform.  He  recognised  me  as  the  man  who  had 
given  him  the  cigarettes,  and  said,  "  Hullo,  doctor, 
you're  always  doing  me  kind  things,  so  now  take  my 
arm  of!."  I  was  very  sorry  that  I  had  to  do  it,  but 
such  is  war  and  the  aftermath  of  victory. 

Next  day  after  our  big  alarm  I  was  sent  back  by 
the  Assistant  Director  of  the  Medical  Service  of  this 
Division  to  take  up  duty  at  Bethune,  four  miles  back 
from  where  we  were,  at  the  Chateau  Gorre,  and  to  help 
in  the  organisation  for  handling  and  treating  our  many 
wounded  there.  Bethune  was  on  the  other  side  of 
the  canal  to  the  chateau,  and  during  the  succeed- 
ing three  or  four  weeks  became  a  very  big  hospital 


170  A  SURGEON  IN  KHAKI 

centre  for  the  British  engaged  in  the  direction  of  La 
Bassee. 

The  Field  Ambulance  headquarters,  with  the  waggons, 
still  remained  at  the  chateau  closer  to  the  firing  line, 
and  evacuated  their  many  wounded  as  speedily  as 
possible  in  to  us  at  Bethune.  These  were  strenuous 
days  of  hard  and  obstinate  fighting,  and  the  casualties 
were  heavy.  The  life  of  the  medical  officer  was  at  this 
place  arduous  and  sleepless,  but  the  motto  of  the  Boyal 
Army  Medical  Corps  is  "In  arduis  fidelis,"  which  may 
be  freely  rendered  *'  Always  do  your  job." 


CHAPTER   XV. 
BETHUNE. 

Bethune  held  a  position  of  great  importance  behind  our 
lines,  for  our  wounded  were  evacuated  thither  from 
the  front,  and  those  fit  to  take  the  journey  were 
then  sent  on  by  hospital  trains  to  Boulogne  and  Rouen 
and  then  to  England.  This  old  city  will  be  visited  by 
many  English  after  the  war,  for  many  English  officers 
and  men  are  sleeping  their  long  sleep  in  the  old  cemetery 
and  in  various  parts  of  the  surrounding  country.  One 
day,  I  am  sure,  a  monument  to  the  memory  of  the  brave 
dead  will  be  raised  in  Bethune,  and  the  mural  inscrip- 
tion will  commemorate  the  names  of  the  fallen,  and 
place  on  record  for  all  time  the  kindness,  the  sympathy, 
and  the  generous  hearts  of  the  people  of  Bethune  who 
helped  us  all  so  much  during  the  hard  days  of  the  war. 
Owing  to  its  many  recent  bombardments  from 
guns  and  aeroplanes,  and  its  proximity  to  the  famous 
canal  and  La  Bassee,  Bethune  has  become  a  city  of 
world-wide  interest.  Its  population  was  at  this  time  a 
cosmopolitan  one.  The  warriors  of  the  East  were  in 
friendly  touch  with  the  warriors  of  the  West.  The 
slanting,  almond-eye  Gurkha,  the  stately  bearded  Sikh, 
the  swarthy  fighting  men  from  the  frontiers  and  central 

171 


172  A  SURGEON  IN  KHAKI 

plains  of  India,  the  Turcos  with  their  flowing  robes, 
the  dapper  Spahi,  the  black-eyed  Senegalese,  the  French 
Alpine  Chasseur,  and  the  splendid  Cuirassier,  were 
all  to  be  seen  in  its  streets  ;  and  there  also  was  Mr. 
Thomas  Atkins,  making  himself,  as  usual,  quite  at  home 
with  them  all,  and  also  with  the  pleasant-faced  smiling 
young  women  in  the  tobacconists  and  fruit  shops. 

Bethune,  with  its  14,000  inhabitants,  is  said  to  be 
the  home  of  many  millionaires — those  manufacturing 
and  industrial  magnates  who  control  the  big  industries 
of  this  thriving  and  populous  part  of  France.  The 
situation  of  the  city  is  not  very  attractive.  It  is  sur- 
rounded by  muddy,  swampy  country,  in  some  places 
nothing  better  than  marshes  or  bogs  in  winter,  but  it 
is  supposed  to  be  attractive  in  spring  and  summer,  when 
it  is  "  a  green  prairie  land." 

The  old  square  in  the  centre  of  the  city  has  a  very 
Flemish  complexion,  but  is  undoubtedly,  owing  to  the 
irregularities  in  design  and  architecture  of  the  surround- 
ing houses  and  shops,  a  very  attractive  and  fascinating 
spot.  On  one  side  are  two  fine  old  fourteenth-century 
Spanish  houses  built  for  some  Spanish  grandees  in  the 
days  when  Spain  was  supreme  in  the  Netherlands.  In 
the  centre  of  the  square  is  an  old  church  and  a  mass 
of  hoary  buildings  forming  an  island,  and  out  of  this 
island  group  of  buildings  the  wonderful  old  Belfry  of 
Bethune  erects  itself  proudly  skyward.  The  belfry 
was  built  in  1346,  and  behind  it  is  the  venerable  church 
of  St.  Vaast,  a  product  of  the  sixteenth  century,  with  a 
very  ornate  Gothic  tower. 


BETHUNE  173 

Naturally  the  belfry  and  the  tower  of  St.  Vaast 
proved  to  be  irresistibly  attractive  to  the  German 
gunners,  and  the  batteries  beyond  La  Bassee  were 
constantly  having  long  bowls  practice  at  them.  From 
the  top  of  the  belfry  one  could  obtain  a  splendid  view  of 
the  surrounding  countryside  and  see  the  shrapnel  and 
big  shells  burst  miles  away.  Taubes  were  constantly 
flpng  over  Bethune  at  this  time,  but  later  on  they 
became  very  chary  about  visiting  it. 

The  life  of  the  old  city  during  the  past  eight  months 
has  been  rather  unhappy,  and  it  has  gone  through 
some  stormy  periods  in  the  past.  In  1188  a  devastating 
plague  swept  the  countryside,  causing  thousands  of 
deaths  and  plunging  the  population  into  an  abyss  of 
fear  and  misery. 

When  the  plague  was  at  its  height  Saint  Eloi  appeared 
to  two  blacksmiths  and  recommended  them  to  form  an 
association  of  **  charitables,"  charged  to  perform  the  last 
offices  for  the  dead  gratuitously  and  to  help  those  in 
distress.  This  curious  association  exists  to-day  in 
Bethune  under  the  name  of  Confreres  des  Charitables. 
During  our  stay  in  Bethune  the  charitables  lived  up 
to  their  old  tradition  and  took  the  deepest  interest  in 
the  welfare  of  our  soldiers,  made  coffins  for  a  very 
large  number  of  our  dead,  and  in  their  curious  three- 
cornered  "  Napoleonic  "  hats  and  quaint  badge  and 
bands,  solemnly  followed  the  many  dead  to  their  last 
resting-place. 

Bethune  has  passed  through  many  sieges  in  its  day. 
In  1487  it  was  in  possession  of  the  Germans  under 


174  A  SURGEON  IN  KHAKI 

Philippe  of  Cleves,  and  was  captured  by  the  French 
under  Marshal  d'Erquerdes  at  the  victory  called 
"  Journee  des  Fromages/'  and  at  a  later  period  of  its 
history  it  was  fortified  by  the  great  French  engineer, 
Vauban. 

The  people  of  Bethune  opened  wide  their  arms  and 
welcomed  our  wounded.  From  the  Mayor  of  the  city  to 
the  humblest  little  shop  girl  these  good  people  did  all 
they  could  for  our  men,  dead,  wounded,  or  active.  The 
women  of  the  town  made  delicacies,  soups,  and  special 
dishes,  provided  wines  and  more  solid  comforts,  such 
as  beds,  mattresses,  blankets,  and  sheets.  Had  I  but 
lifted  my  little  finger  and  asked  for  volunteer  nurses, 
I  could,  I  am  sure,  have  obtained  them  in  hundreds. 
Every  day  while  I  was  there  I  received  letters  from 
all  sorts  of  people  offering  me  help  and  all  manner  of 
things  for  our  men.  On  an  afternoon  at  Bethune  at 
this  time  it  was  "  the  thing  "  for  ladies  to  visit  L'Hopital 
Civil  et  Militaire  and  see  the  British  soldiers.  Our 
lightly  wounded  men  would  generally  be  sitting  about 
on  seats  outside  in  the  courtyard  of  the  hospital  sur- 
rounded by  convalescent  Frenchmen  and  crowds  of 
admiring  ladies,  who  had  brought  cigarettes,  chocolate, 
and  cakes  for  the  soldiers  of  both  nations. 

Although  Tommy  did  not  know  a  word  of  French 
and  they  knew  no  English,  they  seemed  to  thoroughly 
understand  each  other,  judging  by  the  amused  faces 
of  the  elder  French  ladies  and  the  screams  of  laughter 
of  the  younger  ones.  We  could  never  quite  under- 
stand how  Tommy  has  won  such  an  enduring  place 


BETHUNE  175 

in  French  hearts.  The  French  people  certainly  like 
Tommy.  I  was  glad  to  see  this  everywhere  in  France, 
for  I,  too,  like  Tommy,  although  he  is  full  of  tricks. 

A  section  of  the  Field  Ambulance  consisting  of  two 
medical  officers,  Royal  Army  Medical  Corps  orderlies, 
waggons,  cooks,  and  equipment  had  already  taken 
possession  of  the  school  called  L'!l^cole  Jules  Ferry, 
and  was  getting  it  into  some  order  so  as  to  act  as  a 
Clearing  Hospital,  or  temporary  Dressing  Station  or 
temporary  Clearing  Hospital. 

We  were  to  hold  the  fort  till  a  properly  equipped 
Clearing  Hospital  with  its  increased  personnel  and 
supplies  should  arrive.  This  did  not  appear  for  some 
days,  and  our  Field  Ambulance  section  had  the  her- 
culean task  of  handling  all  the  wounded  from  the 
fighting  front,  where  a  bloody  struggle  was  in  progress 
round  the  swamps  and  marshy  country  towards  La 
Bassee.  L'Ecole  Jules  Ferry  was  situated  down  a 
side  street  of  the  old  city,  and  near  the  railway  station. 
It  was  a  very  large  school,  with  several  big  lofty  rooms, 
many  small  side-rooms,  porches  and  alcoves  of  many 
sorts.  There  was  a  large  courtyard  with  latrines,  and 
the  buildings  formed  a  hollow  square  with  part  of 
the  courtyard  in  the  centre.  The  face  of  the  buildings 
looking  on  to  the  courtyard  had  a  long  sweep  of  veran- 
dahs. The  orderlies  soon  got  to  work,  cleaned  and 
swept  the  rooms,  and  covered  the  floor  thickly  with 
clean  straw.  No  beds  were  then  available.  In  a 
small  side-room  off  a  passage-way  an  operating  table 
was  fixed,  and  the  surgical  instruments  and  dressings 


176  A  SURGEON  IN  KHAKI 

were  laid  ready.  Boiling  water  had  to  be  carried  to 
the  operating  room  in  buckets  from  the  kitchen  at 
the  end  of  the  building.  The  hospital  was  all  very 
crude,  but  it  was  the  best  that  could  be  done  under 
the  circumstances. 

We  did  not  have  to  await  events ;  the  events  were 
there  at  once  in  the  guise  of  crowds  of  recently  wounded 
men.  Motor  ambulance  after  motor  ambulance  dashed 
up  with  its  load  of  wounded.  These  were  rapidly 
lifted  out  and  carried  into  the  building ;  then  away 
went  the  ambulance  to  bring  in  more  wounded.  Many 
and  large  as  were  the  schoolrooms  they  were  quickly 
filled  to  overflowing.  The  corridors  and  porches  were 
then  covered  with  straw,  and  this  straw  was  soon 
covered  with  rows  of  wounded  men.  The  paved 
courtyard  under  the  verandahs  was  covered  with 
thick  straw,  and  again  covered  with  wounded.  Every 
foot,  every  inch  of  floor  space  in  the  buildings  and 
under  the  verandahs  was  utilised.  In  one  room  we 
had  closely  packed  rows  four  deep,  with  a  narrow  foot- 
way of  straw  down  the  centre  of  the  room  for  the 
doctors  and  orderlies  to  pass  along.  So  narrow  was 
this  track,  that  it  required  the  agility  of  a  mountain 
goat  to  negotiate  it  without  bumping  some  poor  devil's 
feet,  and  we  walked  along  it  just  as  a  man  walks 
across  a  ploughed  field,  stepping  high  and  watching 
each  step.  Those  densely  packed  rooms  during  that 
long  night  were  a  lurid  and  impressive  picture  of  the 
devastation  of  war.  As  more  and  more  wounded 
continued  to  arrive  we  had  to   pack  our  men  closer 


I 


V 


wmm^-] 


,r^ 


6 


>-»«i-"'-<^^ 


Slightly  worNDEO  and  sick  at  Hkthune. 


EcoLE  Jules  Ferry  at  Bethune. 


BETHUNE  177 

and  closer  together — gently  push  one  this  way,  lift 
another  one  there,  edge  a  third  one  closer  still.  So  it 
went  on.  We  had  in  our  rooms  a  number  of  French 
wounded  picked  up  and  brought  in  by  our  ambulances, 
and  also  a  fair  number  of  German  wounded.  There 
is  no  nationality  amongst  the  men  in  a  hospital,  and 
English,  French,  and  German  all  had  a  little  bit  of  floor 
space  and  a  bit  of  straw  in  our  schoolhouse  that  night. 
All  were  glad  to  get  in  out  of  the  pouring  rain,  and  be 
placed  on  the  warm  dry  straw,  and  covered  with  a 
blanket. 

All  these  men  arrived  with  the  first  field-dressings  on. 
Some  had  been  put  on  by  the  surgeon  with  the  regiment, 
some  by  bearers  and  orderlies,  some  by  Field  Ambulance 
officers,  and  some  by  the  man's  comrades  on  the  field. 

At  first  we  were  so  busy  "  packing  "  our  wounded 
that  we  could  not  investigate  the  nature  of  the  wounds, 
but  we  were  very  soon  under  way  with  the  professional 
side  of  our  work.     Every  wound  was  examined;  the 
slight  ones  were  left  alone,  but  the  serious  ones  were 
re-dressed  and  a  rough  differentiation  of  serious  and 
slight   cases   was   made.     Those   requiring  immediate 
surgery  were  brought  into  our  operation   room  and 
anaesthetics  were  administered.     All  men  in  pain  were 
given  hypodermics  of  morphia,  and  our  orderlies  made 
hot  drinks  and  soups  for  all  those  able  to  take  nourish- 
ment.    There  were,   of  course,   many  men  lying  un- 
conscious with  severe  brain  wounds,  and  most  of  these 
men  died  next  day.     The  brain  injuries  were  amongst 
our  most  hopeless  cases,   but  fortunately  these  poor 

12 


178  A  SURGEON  IN  KHAKI 

fellows  suffered  no  pain  whatever,  and  slept  stertorously 
till  death.  There  was  one  particularly  fine,  strapping, 
young  giant  lieutenant  of  a  Scotch  regiment  who  was 
comfortably  placed  on  straw  and  covered  with  a  blanket, 
and  who  lay  quietly  sleeping,  with  gentle  and  easy 
respirations,  all  the  night  till  the  next  forenoon,  when 
he  suddenly  became  quite  still.  The  top  of  his  head  had 
been  blown  completely  away. 

The  crowds  of  wounded  behaved  like  brave  men 
and  took  their  gruelling  like  good  sportsmen.  Next 
day  the  pressure  was  relieved  by  the  opportune 
arrival  of  a  hospital  train,  and  we  were  enabled  to 
evacuate  250  of  the  cases  fit  for  transport.  More  doctors 
and  Red  Cross  dressers  were  sent  to  help,  and  the  vacant 
places  of  the  250  sent  away  were  occupied  by  the  arrival 
of  another  300. 

As  the  pressure  for  beds  showed  no  signs  of  easing 
off,  and  as  the  reports  from  the  front  were  that  the 
fighting  was  still  violent  and  obstinate,  a  search  was 
made  for  another  building  to  hold  more  wounded. 
This  was  found  at  L'Hopital  Civil  et  Militaire,  a 
permanent  hospital  of  the  city  of  Bethune.  It  was  a 
hospital  of  three  stories,  built  of  brick  round  three  sides 
of  a  big  hollow  square.  The  fourth  side  was  occupied  by 
the  porter's  lodge,  the  two  gateways,  and  the  residential 
quarters  of  the  Reverend  Mother  and  Sisters  of  the  Order 
of  St.  Francis,  who  formed  the  nursing  staff.  The 
basement  wards  of  one  wing  were  for  French  military 
patients,  and  the  other  wings  were  for  civilian  patients  ; 
but  as  a  matter  of  fact  military  wounded  were  put  in 


BETHUNE  179 

all  the  wards  except  the  midwifery  ward,  which  was  full 
of  young  babies  and  mothers.  One  of  these  young 
mothers,  by  the  way,  had  just  become  the  proud 
possessor  of  triplets.  I  had  a  look  at  them,  and  they 
seemed  very  fit .  Their  father  had  been  away  for  the  past 
three  months  in  the  trenches  of  the  Axgonne,  but  per- 
mission had  been  asked  to  enable  him  to  come  down 
and  see  how  well  his  wife  had  done. 

The  top  story  of  the  hospital  had  two  large  empty 
wards,  each  capable  of  holding  seventy  patients  placed 
fairly  closely  together.  I  asked  permission  of  the 
Reverend  Mother  and  the  hospital  secretary  to  use 
these  wards  for  the  reception  of  our  wounded. 

"  But  yes,"'  I  was  eagerly  told ;  "  you  are  welcome, 
and  we  shall  do  all  we  can  for  your  English  wounded.'' 
I  was  also  offered  the  use  of  three  side-rooms  and  part 
of  another  small  ward  for  any  wounded  officers,  and 
— greatest  boon  of  all — the  use  of  the  two  operating 
theatres  of  the  hospital.  These  operating  theatres 
were  modern  and  splendidly  equipped  with  good  surgical 
iron  operating  tables,  suitable  for  adjusting  in  any 
position,  sterilisers  for  instruments,  dressings,  aprons, 
and  operating  towels,  glass  cases  full  of  the  latest 
type  of  instruments,  and  hot  and  cold  water  taps 
controlled  by  foot-pedals  on  the  floor. 

The  lighting  was  all  that  one  could  desire.  My  joy 
knew  no  bounds  now,  for  I  felt  that  at  last  I  would 
be  able  to  do  good  surgery  and  clean  surgery.  Up  till 
now  the  surgery  I  had  done  on  the  field  was  crude  and 
not  very  clean.     It   was   absolutely  impossible  to  be 


180  A  SURGEON  IN  KHAKI 

otherwise,  for  we  were  the  victims  of  stern  military 
circumstances.  But  now  things  would  be  different, 
and  our  wounded  men  and  officers  would  get  the  benefit 
of  surgical  cleanliness. 

I  asked  the  Reverend  Mother  if  she  would  prepare 
one  hundred  straw  mattresses  for  me,  and  get  in  some 
blankets.  "  But  yes  "  I  would  get  them ;  and  also 
Monsieur  le  Docteur  would  have  tables  put  in  the  centre 
of  the  wards  for  the  dressings,  and  would  have  basins 
and  towels.  An  electrician  would  fix  up  electric  lights, 
and  a  kitchen  stove  would  be  put  in  a  side-room  for 
cooking  soup,  boiling  water,  etc.     I  reported  all  this  to 

Surgeon-General  P ,  and  that  able  officer  quickly 

grasped  the  possibilities  of  this  hospital,  installed  me 
there  as  operating  surgeon,  and  directed  that  all  serious 
cases  requiring  surgical  operation  should  be  sent  to  me. 
A  real  Clearing  Hospital  arrived  in  the  town  next 
morning,  and  next  day  took  in  patients.  It  established 
itself  in  the  "  College  for  Young  Ladies,"  and  very 
soon  the  spacious  quarters  of  this  big  building  were 
filled  with  wounded  and  sick  men.  For  besides  our 
wounded  at  this  time  we  had  also  a  large  number  of 
sick.  This  hospital  also  sent  me  any  case  requiring 
surgical  operation. 

Work  at  my  wards  proceeded  apace.  The  women  of 
the  city  rushed  eagerly  to  assist,  and  in  a  din  d'oeil 
had  made  180  straw  mattresses,  provided  blankets,  hot- 
water  bottles,  and  other  sick-room  adjuncts.  The 
position  in  Bethune  was  now  as  follows.  One  Clearing 
Hospital  at  the  College  for  Young  Ladies,  one  at  the 


BETHUNE  181 

school  "  Jules  Ferry/'  and  my  surgical  wards,  only 
for  serious  cases,  at  L'Hopital  Civil  et  Militaire.  All 
three  buildings  were  soon  full,  and  over  seven  thousand 
wounded  men  passed  through  these  buildings  in  less 
than  three  weeks. 

Sir  Anthony  Bowlby,  consulting  surgeon  to  the 
Army,  constantly  visited  this  hospital,  and  was  always 
a  welcome  visitor ;  and  his  surgical  opinion  was  as 
welcome  as  his  encouragement  and  cheeriness  of 
manner. 

The  operating  theatre  was  presided  over  by  Sister 
Ferdinande,  a  trained  and  capable  nurse,  with  rigid 
antiseptic  and  aseptic  principles.  All  I  had  to  do  was 
to  tell  her  that  I  was  going  to  amputate  a  limb  or  do  a 
trephining  operation,  and  ask  her  when  she  would  be 
ready.  At  the  agreed  time  everything  was  certain 
to  be  prepared,  and  I  just  had  to  scrub  up,  put  on 
my  sterilised  apron,  cap,  and  rubber  gloves,  and  be 
ready  for  my  part  of  the  seance.  The  Reverend  Mother 
Superior  was  a  trained  anaesthetist  and  administered 
chloroform  to  many  of  my  cases  during  the  three  weeks 
I  was  there.  Some  days  I  have  had  her  administering 
anaesthetics  for  seven  hours.  Seven  hours'  continuous 
administration,  broken  only  by  the  taking  out  of  one 
patient  and  the  bringing  in  of  another,  is  a  big  test 
of  endurance  for  a  young  man;  yet  this  old  lady 
did  it  smilingly  and  well,  and  said  it  was  "  indeed 
nothing." 

There  were  two  Irish  nuns  at  this  hospital ;  one 
spoke  French  well,  one  was  just  learning,  but  both 


182  A  SURGEON  IN  KHAKI 

spoke  "  Irish/'  which  is  good  English.  These  two  nuns 
were  put  on  nursing  duty  in  my  wards,  and  they  were 
hugely  delighted  to  get  amongst  the  British  wounded 
and  to  hear  their  countrymen  talk.  Tommy  Atkins 
was  delighted  with  the  two  Irish  nuns,  and  told  them 
some  wonderful  stories  about  the  fighting  and  about 
the  Germans.     One  of  them  asked  me  if  I  really  thought 

that    Private   S of   the   Warwicks  had  shot  two 

hundred  Germans  one  afternoon.  I  told  the  sister  that  I 
did  not  know,  but  hoped  he  had.  These  two  sisters  were 
at  work  in  the  wards  night  and  day.  They  told  me  one 
day  that  they  had  never  heard  a  soldier  swear.  I  was 
very  glad  to  hear  this,  for  it  showed  that  Tommy  was 
behaving  himself,  and  I  did  not  tell  the  sister  that 
Tommy  on  occasion  was  a  very  past  master  in  strange 
oaths.  The  sisters  were  very  concerned  about  the  lice 
on  our  soldiers'  shirts  and  flannels  ;  and  really  this  was  a 
terrible  source  of  anxiety  to  all  medical  officers  at  this 
time,  for  these  cursed  parasites  would  make  the  lot  of 
our  wounded  men  unbearable  at  times.  One  man  with 
a  fractured  leg  put  up  firmly  in  splints  begged  me  to 
take  the  splints  off  so  that  he  could  "  scratch  the  leg." 
I  had  really  in  the  end  to  take  off  the  splint,  bathe  the 
skin  in  petrol,  and  dust  sulphur  on  the  cotton  wool,  for 
lice  had  worked  their  way  down  into  the  warm  wool 
next  the  skin,  and  by  their  "  promenading  "  about  had 
set  up  the  irritation  which  the  soldier  begged  to  scratch. 
The  sister  once  said  to  me  that  she  used  to  think  that 
the  British  soldiers  were  the  most  cleanly  of  men,  but 
she  found  really  that  they  were  all  covered  with  lice. 


BETHUNE  183 

I  told  the  wondering-eyed  sister  that  it  was  a  regrettable 
fact,  but  nevertheless  true,  that  the  whole  British 
Army  at  the  front  was  lousy. 

When  our  wounded  arrived  at  the  hospital  they 
were  speedily  placed  on  the  straw  mattresses,  quickly 
undressed  by  the  sisters  and  other  helping  nuns,  and 
covered  with  warm  sheets  and  blankets  and  surrounded 
with  hot  bottles.  Basins  of  hot  water  and  soap  were 
brought  round  and  then  the  men  were  washed  and 
cleaned.  Their  lice-infected  shirts  and  underclothing 
were  sterilised  by  dry  heat. 

It  was  the  finest  example  of  Ventente  cordiale  to 
see  the  French  nuns  taking  off  the  muddy  boots  and 
puttees,  cutting  off  blood-stained  clothing,  washing 
and  cleaning  the  wounded,  slipping  on  warm  dry  shirts, 
and  tucking  the  blankets  and  pillows  comfortably. 
Others  appeared  with  hot  soup,  hot  coffee,  red  wine, 
and  hot  gruel.     These  nuns  were  magnificent. 

I  wrote  to  Lord  Grey,  late  Governor-General  of 
Canada,  asking  him  to  bring  to  the  notice  of  Her  Majesty 
Queen  Alexandra  the  splendid  work  performed  by 
these  ladies.  Lord  Grey  very  kindly  did  so,  and  also 
sent  a  copy  of  my  letter  to  His  Majesty  the  King,  who 
replied  through  Lord  Stamfordham  that  he  had  read 
it  with  much  interest.  Queen  Alexandra  sent  the 
following  letter  to  the  Reverend  Mother  Superior  of  the 
Franciscan  Sisters  at  Bethune : 

"  I  have  learned  from  Dr.  Martin  of  your  noble  and 
heroic  devotion  for  our  brave  and  unfortunate  wounded 
soldiers,  and  it  is  with  a  heart  full  of  gratitude  that  I 


184  A  SURGEON  IN  KHAKI 

ask    yoii    to    accept   my  most   ardent   and   warmest 
thanks. 

"  I  pray  God  that  He  will  reward  you  for  the  angelic 
care  that  you  have  bestowed  on  our  unfortunate  soldiers, 
and  I  will  never  forget  that  it  is  to  you,  madame,  and 
your  sisters,  that  they  assuredly  owe  their  life  and 
their  recovered  health. 

"  Alexandra/' 

This  letter  was  published  in  all  the  leading  French 
and  British  papers,  including  the  London  Times,  Tablet, 
Daily  Mail,  Figaro,  Le  Journal,  Le  Temps,  in  February 
1915,  and  excited  very  considerable  interest  and  atten- 
tion in  France.  The  Abbe  Bouchon  d'Homme,  the 
Aumonier  to  the  hospital,  wrote  me  later  to  say  that  the 
Reverend  Mother  and  the  Sisters  were  delighted  beyond 
measure  at  Queen  Alexandra's  gracious  message. 

It  may  not  be  out  of  place  now  to  describe  briefly 
the  nature  of  some  of  the  wounds  met  with  during 
the  j&ghting  at  La  Bassee.  The  non-medical  mind  is 
as  interested  in  the  wounds  and  sufierings  of  our  men 
as  are  the  doctors,  and  it  is  to  the  intelligent  interest 
of  the  layman  we  owe  so  much  of  what  has  been  done 
for  our  wounded  and  sick  men.  Compound  fractures 
and  splintered  bone,  septic  wounds,  tetanus,  brain 
injuries,  inoculations,  etc.,  are  words  freely  bandied 
about  and  understood  by  any  group  of  ladies  met 
together  round  an  afternoon  tea-table.  Mrs.  Smith- 
Jones  will  tell  Mrs.  Jones-Smith  that  her  son  is  in 
hospital  with  a  septic  compound  fracture  and  that  the 
wound  is  being  fully  drained,  and  Mrs.  J.-S.  will  reply 
that  her  sister's  husband.  Captain  X of  the  R.F.A., 


BETHUNE  185 

is  recovering  from  a  penetrating  wound  of  the  lung, 
but  lias  still  some  pleural  effusion.  So  no  apology  is 
further  necessary  when  referring  to  such  a  thing  as  gas 
gangrene. 

Gas  gangrene  was  one  of  the  terrors  of  the  doctors 
at  this  time.  It  was  a  new  and  totally  unexpected 
complication  of  the  wounds,  and  at  first  we  did  not 
know  what  to  do  in  the  face  of  this  pressing  danger.  A 
man  would  get,  say,  a  flesh  wound  of  the  arm  or  leg,  or 
perhaps  a  fractured  bone,  and  very  soon  the  whole  limb 
would  become  gangrenous  and  die.  Gangrene  means 
death  of  the  part.  It  may  be  death  of  a  small  part  or 
of  a  large  part,  and  the  worst  feature  of  the  form  of 
gangrene  met  with  at  Bethune  was  its  tendency  to  rapid 
spread,  resulting  in  the  speedy  death  of  the  limb  and 
of  the  patient.  We  had  many  deaths  from  this  terrible 
gas  gangrene,  and  performed  many  amputations  to 
save  lives.  A  good  surgeon  hates  to  amputate  a  limb, 
and  will  gladly  exert  all  his  skill  and  knowledge  to  save 
even  a  toe.  It  was  heartrending  to  have  to  perform 
so  many  amputations  at  Bethune,  and  yet  these  serious 
mutilating  operations  had  to  be  performed  in  order  to 
save  lives. 

The  gangrene  was  caused  by  a  group  of  bacilli  called 
anaerobes,  amongst  which  may  be  many  organisms. 
About  ten  different  organisms  have  been  obtained  from 
cases  of  gas  gangrene,  and  these  all  belong  to  the  same 
family  of  anaerobic  bacilli.  They  are  all  spore-bearing, 
and  grow  in  the  absence  of  air.  These  bacilli  are  found 
in  the  soil  in  France  and  Belgium,  and  are  always  to  be 


186  A  SURGEON  IN  KHAKI 

found  in  the  soil  of  those  countries  which  have  been 
closely  cultivated  for  centuries  past. 

If  a  guinea-pig  is  inoculated  with  a  sample  of  this 
earth  shaken  up  in  a  little  water  it  will  develop  this  gas 
gangrene  and  die.  Imagine,  then,  this  picture.  The 
soil  of  the  trenches  is  full  of  these  organisms,  which,  if 
introduced  into  an  open  wound,  grow  and  spread  and 
cause  the  limb  to  become  gangrenous.  As  the  organism 
spreads  up  the  limb  it  produces  a  gas  of  its  own,  and 
by  pressing  on  the  skin  one  can  feel  this  gas  cracking, 
like  tissue  paper,  under  the  fingers.  The  treatment  is 
to  inject  the  parts  with  oxygen  or  peroxide  of  hydrogen, 
to  make  free  incisions  round  the  wound,  thoroughly 
cleanse  the  wound  and  keep  it  clean.  The  general 
condition  of  the  patients  required  great  care,  for  they 
were  all  very,  very  ill.  When  a  man  got  wounded  in 
the  trenches  some  dirt  was  bound  to  get  into  the  wound, 
for  the  men's  hands  and  clothes  were  usually  caked 
with  mud. 

It  is  a  natural  movement  to  clap  a  hand  on  the 
wounded  spot.  If  a  man  is  struck  on  the  face  or  limbs, 
he  will  lay  down  his  rifle  or  perhaps  drop  it,  and  at 
once  put  his  hand  on  the  injured  part  to  ascertain  the 
extent.  It  is  a  movement  which  is  almost  involuntary. 
I  have  seen  hit  men  do  this  often,  and  when  they  with- 
draw their  hand  they  always  look  at  it  to  see  if  there  is 
any  blood,  and  the  bravest  man  does  not  like  to  see 
his  own  blood.  The  hands  of  the  men  in  the  trenches 
were  infected  with  the  bacilli  of  this  gas  gangrene  and 
of  tetanus,  and  when  these  infected  fingers  touched  a 


BETHUNE  187 

recent  wound,  the  wound  itself  became  infected  with 
these  highly  dangerous  organisms. 

Pieces  of  khaki  cloth,  caked  in  mud,  were  often 
driven  into  the  wounds  with  the  bullets  and  shrapnel, 
and  on  this  cloth  there  were  of  course  millions  of  the 
deadly  little  beasts. 

If  the  case  reached  us  soon  after  the  onset  of 
gangrene  a  cure  could  almost  certainly  be  promised. 
If  the  case  arrived  late,  when  the  limbs  were  dead, 
amputation  was  the  only  "  conservative  treatment  " 
that  one  could  adopt.  Many  of  the  cases  sent  to  me 
were  beyond  any  hope  of  recovery  and  soon  died.  On 
one  day  I  saw  in  one  Clearing  Hospital  in  the  town 
four  cases  dying  from  gas  gangrene  ;  in  the  other  Clearing 
Hospital,  two  cases  in  articulo  mortis  from  the  same 
trouble ;  and  in  my  own,  one  other  case.  Seven  cases 
dying  on  one  day  from  gas  gangrene  !  None  of  these 
had  been  operated  upon.  This  will  give  some  idea 
of  the  formidable  character  of  this  complication. 

None  but  the  very  serious  cases  were  sent  to  me. 
Many  cases  of  gas  gangrene  were  evacuated  early  and 
sent  to  the  Base  Hospitals.  Most  of  my  cases  came 
from  one  or  other  of  the  Clearing  Hospitals  in  this  town. 
Some  arrived  direct  from  the  Field  Ambulances.  In 
every  amputation  for  gas  gangrene  performed  at  this 
hospital  the  limb  was  absolutely  dead  and  beyond  the 
possibility  of  any  treatment  short  of  amputation.  All 
the  patients  were  in  an  extremely  grave  state,  and 
their  general  condition  was  in  every  case  very  bad.  I 
cannot  picture  any  worse  surgical  subject  than  these 


188  A  SURGEON  IN  KHAKI 

men  with  gas  gangrene.  Numbers  of  them  were  in  too 
low  a  state  to  admit  of  a  general  anaesthetic,  and  here 
the  necessary  operations  were  performed  under  con- 
duction anaesthesia. 

Dr.  F ,  an  eminent  French  surgeon  in  charge 

of  the  French  wounded  in  this  town,  saw  many  of 
my  cases  before,  during,  and  after  operation.  I  had 
the  privilege  also  of  seeing  his  gangrene  cases  at  this 
time.  He  had  amongst  the  French  wounded  the  same 
experience  as  mine.  Both  of  us  had  German  wounded 
to  treat,  and  here  also  we  met  dead  limbs  from  gas 
gangrene.  We  were  both  of  the  opinion  that  the 
Germans  at  this  place  were  also  up  against  a  very 
virulent  "  culture  "  here,  that  of  the  anaerobe.  Some 
wounded  French  refugees  were  brought  into  this 
hospital  at  this  period,  and  some  of  these  had  gas 
gangrene.  The  serious  character  of  gas  gangrene  at 
this  time  could  only  be  recognised  at  the  front.  The 
serious  cases  were  retained  here  for  operation.  I  am 
of  the  opinion  that  all  cases  of  gangrene  should  be 
treated  at  the  front  at  the  nearest  Clearing  Hospital, 
and  that  no  case  should  be  sent  to  the  Base  till  the 
gangrene  had  disappeared,  subject,  of  course,  as  always, 
to  the  military  situation.  All  the  wounded  admitted 
to  this  town  —  French,  British,  and  German — came 
from  the  same  area  of  the  battle  front. 

In  many  of  the  cases  of  gas  gangrene  bones  were 
badly  shattered  and  pulverised,  splinters  of  bone  were 
lying  in  surrounding  muscles,  or  had  been  driven  out 
through  the  skin.     Important    nerves    were    injured, 


BETHUNE  189 

torn,  or  compressed  in  many  of  them.  Important 
blood-vessels  were  frequently,  but  not  invariably, 
injured.  In  some,  big  vessels  had  been  torn  through ; 
in  others,  arteries  and  nerves  were  compressed  by  dis- 
placed fragments  of  bone.  The  wounds  were  dirty 
in  most  cases.  The  skin  was  black  and  lacerated,  and 
muscles  were  extruded  and  covered  with  coagulated 
blood  clots. — Wound  full  of  blood  clots,  and  containing 
at  times  pieces  of  khaki  cloth,  shrapnel  fragments, 
nickel  casing  of  bullets,  gravel,  and,  in  two  cases,  bits  of 
rock. — So  runs  the  record  in  my  notes.  There  were, 
however,  cases  in  which  the  bullet  had  drilled  an 
apparently  clean  hole  through  a  joint,  like  the  wrist 
or  ankle,  withgut  much  apparent  destruction  to  bone. 
In  such  cases  one  would  not  expect  gas  gangrene  ;  yet 
it  sometimes  occurred. 

Gas  gangrene  is  encouraged  by  tight  bandaging, 
and  many  of  the  cases  had  a  bandage  applied  all  too 
firmly.  When  a  man  is  wounded  in  a  trench  his  mate 
frequently  applies  the  first-aid  dressing,  and  fixes  it 
like  a  tourniquet.  This  could  perhaps  be  obviated 
by  making  the  bandage  of  the  first  field-dressing  a 
little  wider  than  at  present.  A  narrow  bandage  tends 
to  become  cord-like. 

All  the  cases  of  gas  gangrene  had  a  very  penetrating 
putrefactive  smell,  which  is  quite  characteristic.  The 
area  of  advancing  gangrene  is  preceded  by  an  oedematous 
zone,  which  fades  in  one  direction  to  the  area  of  healthy 
skin  and  in  the  direction  towards  the  wound  to  a  dullish 
injected   area   which   crackles   on   palpation.    Nearer 


190  A  SURGEON  IN  KHAKI 

the  wound  the  skin  is  purplish  and  dark.  Around 
the  edges  of  the  usually  jagged  wound  the  tissues  were 
black  or  greenish-black.  Extravasated  blood  under- 
mined the  skin  all  round  the  wound.  The  wound  itself 
was  full  of  blood  clots.  The  limb  distal  to  the  wound 
was  swollen,  greenish-black,  covered  with  green  blebs, 
cold,  insensitive,  and  pulseless  in  the  "  dead  "  limbs. 
Frequently  toes  and  fingers  were  quite  black.  In 
other  serious  cases  there  might  be  a  little  warmth  or  a 
slight  pulse.  If  any  case  showed  either  of  these  two 
favourable  signs,  an  attempt  was  made  to  save  the 
limb,  and  was  in  many  cases  successful.  The  gangrene 
did  not  spread  up  a  limb  in  an  even  circle.  For  example, 
it  might  reach  anteriorly  to  the  lower  third  of  the 
thigh,  and  posteriorly  be  at  or  well  above  the  fold  of  the 
buttock.  This  was  due  to  the  extravasated  blood 
lying  more  towards  the  dependent  parts  and  to  gravity. 
In  the  upper  arm  the  gangrene  travelled  rapidly  up 
the  inner  side  along  the  course  of  the  big  blood-vessels. 
The  invasion  spread  upwards  ;  very  little  crackling 
was  felt  below  the  site  of  the  wound.  The  circulation 
below  seemed  to  be  rapidly  cut  off,  and  that  portion  of 
the  limb  underwent  the  changes  associated  with  a 
complete  circulatory  block.  Wounds  of  the  thigh  with 
shattering  of  the  femur,  wounds  of  the  elbow- joint 
and  of  the  metatarsus  were  very  prone  to  develop  this 
gangrene.  Some  of  the  cases  were  admitted  within 
thirty-six  hours  after  receipt  of  the  wound,  with  well- 
marked  gangrene. 

In  every  case  of  amputation  performed  there  was 


BETHUNE  191 

nothing  else  to  be  done  in  order  to  save  life.  The 
limbs  were  dead.  In  many  of  these  cases  important 
blood-vessels  were  torn,  crushed,  or  compressed,  and 
when  the  vessels  were  injured  the  gangrene  developed 
more  quickly  and  spread  more  rapidly.  It  is  regrettable 
that  one  had  to  perform  so  many  amputations  at  this 
time,  but  it  is  a  matter  for  congratulation  that  so  many 
lives  were  saved.  One  of  the  cases  died  suddenly 
twelve  hours  after  a  disarticulation  at  the  shoulder- 
joint.  Another  one  died  three  days  after  amputation 
at  the  hip- joint,  from  gangrene  which  progressed 
steadily  on  to  the  lower  abdomen.  There  were,  in 
addition,  five  deaths  from  gangrene  following  wounds 
of  the  extremities.  These  five  were  admitted  in  a  dying 
condition,  and  passed  away  two  to  four  hours  after 
admission.  One  could  do  nothing  for  them  surgically. 
Other  cases  died  at  the  other  Clearing  Hospitals  in  the 
town.  It  was  a  sad  and  mournful  experience  seeing 
these  fine  young  men  die. 

These  cases  of  gas  gangrene  were  all  bad  surgical 
subjects,  for  in  addition  to  the  gangrene,  loss  of  blood, 
privation,  and  exposure  subsequent  to  being  wounded, 
their  wounds  were  dangerous  and  mutilating,  and  the 
transportation  to  the  hospital  was,  sometimes,necessarily 
an  agonising  ordeal.  This  will  show  that  our  Clearing 
Hospitals  at  the  front  should  be  well  and  thoroughly 
equipped  with  all  modern  appliances  for  the  treatment 
of  shock,  and  a  staff  fully  alive  to  this  clamant  necessity. 
A  Clearing  Hospital  cannot  to-day  remain  as  an  ad- 
ministrative unit  only. 


192  A  SURGEON  IN  KHAKI 

Another  complication  of  our  wounds  at  this  time 
was  tetanus  (or  the  so-called  lock-jaw).  When  it  was 
recognised  that  the  bacillus  of  tetanus  was  also  found 
in  the  soil  of  France  and  Flanders,  efi&cient  measures 
were  at  once  adopted  to  combat  its  terrible  effects. 
Accordingly  anti-tetanic  serum  was  provided  at  all  the 
Base  Hospitals,  Clearing  Hospitals,  and  Ambulances,  and 
every  man  wounded  in  France  or  Flanders  to-day  gets 
an  injection  of  this  serum  within  twenty-four  hours  of 
the  receipt  of  the  wound.  No  deaths  from  tetanus 
have  occurred  since  these  measures  have  been  adopted. 

Tetanus  caused  many  deaths  at  the  beginning  of 
the  war,  not  only  amongst  our  own  soldiers,  but  also 
amongst  the  Belgians,  French,  and  Germans.  When 
tetanus  manifests  itself,  when  the  convulsions  and 
muscular  spasms  come  on,  it  is  a  terrible  malady  to 
treat,  and  most  of  the  cases  die.  At  this  time  the 
injection  of  anti-tetanic  serum  does  not  ensure  a  recovery, 
but  if  this  serum  is  given  to  every  wounded  man,  then 
none  will  develop  tetanus,  and  that  is  why  none  of  the 
wounded  men  are  asked  if  they  will  have  the  "  lock-jaw 
injection."  At  the  front  there  is  no  time  for  con- 
scientious objectors. 

Shrapnel  wounds  were  always  bad ;  the  round 
bullets  of  lead  always  ripped  and  tore  the  tissues  about 
so  terribly.  The  Mauser  bullet  did  not  cause  nearly 
so  much  damage,  but  it  sometimes  produced  very 
lacerating  wounds.  The  Mauser  bullet  "  turns  over  " 
when  travelling  through  a  limb,  and  this  turning  means 
tearing  of  tissues  on  the  path  of  the  bullet,  and  often  a 


BETHUNE  193 

huge  jagged  wound  like  that  produced  by  an  explosive 
bullet. 

It  has  been  said  that  we  are  treating  wounds  of 
an  eighteenth-century  character  with  twentieth-century 
technique.  The  eighteenth-century  battle  wounds 
were  inflicted  at  close  range,  and  so  are  many  of  the 
wounds  inflicted  to-day. 

At  Crecy  and  Agincourt  both  sides  used  arrows. 
The  aviators  of  the  Allies  and  the  enemy  carry  steel 
darts  which  they  spin  down  on  the  foe  below.  Bows 
have  been  used  in  the  trenches  to  send  inflammable 
arrows  into  the  opposing  lines.  The  Roman  soldier 
advanced  to  close  combat  behind  a  shield  held  on  his 
left  arm,  and  shields  have  been  used  at  certain  observa- 
tion spots  by  the  Germans  and  in  the  Russian  trenches  ; 
our  Allies  have  at  times  used  spades  for  a  similar  purpose. 

Bombards  were  employed  at  Crecy,  and  bombards 
have  come  to  their  own  again  in  the  trenches  from 
Switzerland  to  the  sea.  Hand  grenades  were  employed 
in  the  Peninsular  War,  and  are  employed  to-day  in  this 
War  of  the  Nations.  Our  men  attack  the  enemy  and 
the  enemy  attack  us  with  bayonets  as  in  the  days  of 
the  Crimea  and  the  Peninsula,  and  our  riflemen  pick 
off  the  enemy  by  long-distance  fire,  and  also  fire  at  close 
range  into  solid  masses  of  them.  Even  the  armour  of 
old  days  is  represented  on  modern  fields  of  battle,  for 
the  French  Cuirassier  goes  into  action  with  a  brass 
cuirass  and  helmet ;  and  a  French  infantry  officer  of  my 
acquaintance  has  worn  a  light  shirt  of  chain-mail 
extending  from  his  neck  to  beyond  his  hips,  all  through 
13 


194  A  SURGEON  IN  KHAKI 

this  campaign,  and  he  said  that  it  had  saved  his  life 
on  more  than  one  occasion.  In  one  magasin  in  Rouen 
shirts  of  beautifully  made  chain-mail  can  be  purchased, 
and  the  shopkeeper  told  me  that  he  had  sold  hundreds 
to  French  soldiers. 

The  hardships  of  the  Crimean  trenches — cold, 
rheumatism,  and  frostbite — have  been  repeated  on  the 
Yser.  Gangrene  was  rampant  amongst  the  wounded 
of  Wagram,  Austerlitz,  and  Borodino,  and  amongst  the 
French  and  British  wounded  at  Vittoria,  Salamanca, 
Badajos,  and  other  great  battles  of  the  Peninsula,  and  it 
has  startlingly  reappeared  on  the  Aisne  and  in  Flanders. 

Historians  of  that  day  refer  to  it  as  hospital 
gangrene,  or  the  gangrene  so  common  after  any  surgical 
operation  or  wound  of  that  time.  It  may,  on  the  other 
hand,  have  been  the  same  gas  gangrene  that  has  omin- 
ously complicated  so  many  of  our  wounds  in  France 
and  Flanders.  The  bacillus  which  produces  this 
gangrene  may  belong,  for  all  we  know  to  the  contrary, 
to  a  very  old  family  of  bacilli,  who  would  look  upon 
pedigrees  dating  to  William  the  Conqueror  with  an 
aristocratic  contempt  when  his  own  stretched  back  to 
the  beginning  of  time. 

There  is  one  feature  of  war  as  carried  on  to-day 
which  is  quite  new,  and  that  is  by  poison  gases  and  by 
poisoning  wells  and  water  supplies.  In  West  Africa 
the  Germans  have  been  proved  indisputably  and  by 
their  own  admissions  to  have  poisoned  wells  and  water 
supplies,  and  the  whole  world  stands  amazed  and 
aghast  at  the  devilish  and  inhuman  Germans  who  set 


BETHUNE  195 

free  poison  gases  to  overwhelm  and  suffocate  British, 
French,  and  Belgian  soldiers  in  the  trenches.  This 
diabolical  and  ghastly  method  of  murder  is  without 
parallel  in  history,  and  the  bloodily-minded  men  who 
conceived  and  carried  out  this  sinister,  ferocious  thinsf 
will  live  accursed  all  their  days  and  be  a  name  of  scorn 
and  loathing  for  ever. 

Although  the  civil  hospital  at  Bethune  was  such  a 
grim  place  of  crowded  wounded,  it  was  yet  the  scene 
of  much  humour.  We  had  wounded  men  belonging  to 
many  different  countries,  and  the  nuns  were  very 
interested  in  all  the  odd  types.  Off  one  of  the  large 
French  wards  there  was  a  small  room  holding  eight 
beds,  and  a  nun  brought  me  in  one  day  to  see  the  curious 
occupants  ranged  in  beds  alongside  each  other.  There 
were  a  Senegalese,  an  Algerian,  a  Zouave,  an  Alpine 
Chasseur,  a  Turco,  a  native  of  Madagascar,  a  man  of 
the  Foreign  legion,  and  a  Frenchman.  I  think  that  the 
nuns  always  kept  this  ward  "  International.'"  It  was 
their  little  joke,  and  visitors  were  always  shown  this 
ward.  The  patients  themselves  enjoyed  the  melange. 
The  courtyard  of  the  hospital  was  a  great  meeting-place 
for  our  convalescent  soldiers  with  the  French  con- 
valescents, and  they  used  to  sit  about  on  benches 
surrounded  by  an  admiring  lot  of  French  women  from 
the  town.  We  also  had  a  fair  number  of  German 
wounded  on  our  hands,  and  one  of  them  at  this  time 
was  terribly  ill,  suffering  from  the  after-effects  of  gas 
gangrene  of  the  foot  following  on  a  bullet  wound  of  the 
ankle  joint.     His  foot  was  amputated,  and  he  had  a 


196  A  SURGEON  IN  KHAKI 

struggle  for  some  days  to  keep  going,  but  eventually 
pulled  through.  The  wounded  German  soldiers  were 
very  tractable  and  easy  to  manage.  They  were  obedient , 
gave  no  trouble,  and  seemed  grateful.  I  cannot  say  the 
same  of  the  two  wounded  German  officers  I  had.  Both 
were  slight  wounds,  and  ought  not  really  to  have  been 
sent  to  this  hospital  at  all.  They  were  truculent  and 
overbearing  to  the  nuns  and  orderlies,  and  behaved 
like  cads.  The  German  has  no  sense  of  humour.  He 
takes  himself  very  seriously,  and  that  amuses  us.  He 
thinks  and  says  that  we  are  fools,  and  that  also  amuses 
us.  A  German  once  said  that  the  English  would  always 
be  fools,  and  that  the  Germans  would  never  be  gentle- 
men. This  is  most  obviously  correct.  We  asked  a 
German  sergeant-major  who  had  been  captured  if  the 
Hymn  of  Hate  was  really  popular  in  Germany.  The 
sergeant-major  in  civil  life  was  a  school  teacher.  He 
wore  big  spectacles  and  had  a  rough  beard,  and  was 
altogether  a  very  serious-minded  man.  He  assured  us 
that  the  German  hate  was  a  very  real  one,  and  he  took 
the  hymn  very  seriously.  Lissauer,  its  author,  is  said 
to  be  a  serious  man  also,  and  has  he  not  been  awarded 
the  Cross  of  the  Red  Eagle  by  the  All  Highest  himself  ? 
We  laugh  at  the  hymn,  and  this  makes  the  German 
mad.  Certainly  we  must  be  fools  to  laugh  at  the 
Hymn  of  Hate.  The  words  inspire  and  enthral  the 
Teuton,  and  the  music  uplifts  his  sentimental  soul  to 
the  Empyrean. 

"  We  love  as  one,  we  hate  aa  one. 
We  have  one  foe,  and  one  alone — England." 


BETHUNE  197 

The  German  considers  this  to  be  a  purely  German 
hymn,  breathing  the  spirit  of  the  Fatherland — unending 
hate.  It  is  his  song,  and  to  sing  it  does  him  good. 
You  can  then  understand  the  expression  of  blank 
amazement  on  the  face  of  our  captured  schoolmaster — 
the  sergeant-major  with  the  spectacles  and  beard — 
when  he  was  told  that  the  Hymn  of  Hate  was  sung  with 
gusto  in  the  music  halls  of  London  and  Paris,  and  was 
received  by  the  audience  with  shrieking  sounds  of 
applause. 

The  Hymn  of  Hate  sung  by  an  Englishman  in  an 
English  music  hall  !  Donnerwetter  !  He  could  not 
understand.     He  had  no  sense  of  humour. 

A  Prussian  officer  was  captured  in  November  with 
about  fifteen  men,  and  I  saw  him  marched  in  shortly 
after  the  capture.  He  looked  arrogant,  and  one  in- 
stinctively took  a  dislike  to  him,  he  was  so  obviously 
stamped  "  bounder.'' 

His  revolver  was  in  its  pouch  on  his  belt.  We  had 
forgotten  to  take  it,  and  he  had  forgotten  that  it  was 
there.  Our  prisoner  spoke  English  very  well,  and  said 
that  "  he  wished  he  had  been  shot.  He  was  for  ever 
and  ever  disgraced  at  being  made  a  prisoner.  His 
regiment  would  not  have  him  again  as  an  officer.'' 
The  impression  we  formed,  who  were  standing 
round  listening,  was  that  this  whining  bounder  seemed 
to  feel  it  a  particular  disgrace  to  be  a  prisoner  of  the 
hated  English.  An  English  officer  in  charge  at  this 
particular  place  here  went  up  to  our  snarling  Prussian 
who  wished  "  that  he  had  been  killed  "  and  said  :  "  I 


198  A  SURGEON  IN  KHAKI 

see  we  have  omitted  to  take  over  your  revolver.  It 
is  still  in  your  pouch  and  probably  loaded — sure  to  be. 
You  say  you  are  sorry  you  were  not  killed.  Well,  go 
off  five  paces  over  there  and  blov/  your  damned  head 
off  with  your  own  gun.  I  won't  interfere  with  you, 
and  none  of  us  will  mourn  for  you."  The  Prussian 
shut  up  like  an  oyster.  We  all  laughed,  and  the 
soldiers  round  enjoyed  it  hugely.  The  eyes  of  the 
man  blazed  with  fury,  but  he  made  no  movement 
towards  that  five  paces  off,  and  handed  over  his  re- 
volver to  our  English  officer,  who  refused  to  touch  it, 
and  called  on  a  soldier  to  take  it. 

The  Prussian  did  not  see  the  humour  of  the  situation, 
and  "  there's  the  humour  on't  "  old  Falstaff  would 
have  said. 

A  few  days  after  the  sinking  of  the  Emden  the  news 
reached  the  British  and  French  in  the  trenches.  The 
French  were  as  delighted  as  we  were.  In  the  Argonne 
an  advanced  French  trench  was  separated  by  only  the 
width  of  a  road  from  an  advanced  German  trench. 
The  officer  in  command  of  the  French  trench  v^Tote  out 
the  news  of  the  Emden  fight  on  a  piece  of  paper  and 
tied  this  paper  round  a  stone,  which  he  flung  into  the 
German  trench.  It  was  received  with  guttural  cries 
of  annoyance.  Shortly  after  this  time  from  the  German 
trench  came  another  stone  with  a  piece  of  paper  in- 
scribed, "  Monsieur,  go  to  Hell."  The  French  officer, 
ever  polite  and  determined  to  have  the  last  word,  sent 
back  this  note  : 

"  Dear  Bosches, — ^I  have  been  to  many  places.     I 


«L  r;-'  A..'.  \fi  I  ', 

'     >'  "» '    *■■■ 


BETHUNE  199 

have  been  invited  to  visit  many  places  in  my  time,  but 
this  is  the  first  time  that  I  have  been  invited  to  visit 
the  German  headquarters." 

There  is  a  society  in  London  called  the  *'  Society 
for  Lonely  Soldiers."  Its  object  is  to  be  of  some 
assistance  to  soldiers  who  have  no  relations  or  friends 
and  are  quite  alone  in  the  world.  A  young  lady  of  this 
society  sent  a  parcel  of  comforts  to  the  British  prison 
camp  in  Germany,  and  addressed  the  parcel  to  "  The 
loneliest  British  soldier  in  Germany." 

Some  weeks  afterwards  a  reply  was  received  from 
the  German  officer  in  command  of  the  camp.  "  Madam, 
your  gifts  have  been  impartially  distributed  amongst  all 
the  prisoners.  We  were  unable  to  decide  which  was 
the  loveliest  British  soldier  in  camp."  Imagine  a 
spectacled  old  German  officer  methodically  scrutinising 
all  the  British  prisoners  to  ascertain  which  was  the 
"  loveliest  "  one  ! 

Apropos  of  humour,  read  this  incident  reported  by 
"  Bye-witness "  from  the  front.  "  One  wounded 
Prussian  officer  of  a  particularly  offensive  and  truculent 
type,  which  is  not  uncommon,  expressed  the  greatest 
contempt  for  our  methods  :  '  You  do  not  fight.  You 
murder  ! '  he  said.  *  If  it  had  been  straightforward, 
honest  fighting  we  should  have  beaten  you,  but  my 
regiment  never  had  a  chance  from  the  first.  There 
was  a  shell  every  ten  yards.  Nothing  could  live  in 
such  a  fire." " 

This  from  one  of  the  apostles  of  frightfulness  ! 


200  A  SURGEON  IN  KHAKI 

Now  read  this  concluding  sentence  in  a  letter  from 
a  German  lady  of  high  social  position  to  a  Russian 
lady: 

"  We  wish  to  carry  in  our  hearts  an  undying  hatred, 

and  we  utterly  reject  all  useless  verbiage  on '  humanity/ 

*'  To  mothers  and  to  German  women  this  hate  gives  a 

sort  of  satisfaction  without  which  our  hearts  would  not 

be  able  to  support/^  etc.  etc. 

Read  this  order  of  the  day,  dated  26th  August  1914, 
from  General  Stenger,  Brigadier  of  the  88th  Brigade, 
14th  Baden  Army  Corps.  (This  document  is  quite 
authentic,  and  is  at  present  in  the  hands  of  the 
French  War  Office.)  This  is  the  translation:  ''The 
Brigade  on  setting  out  to-day  will  make  no  prisoners  ;  all 
prisoners  will  be  killed.  The  wounded,  with  or  with- 
out arms,  will  be  put  to  death.  Prisoners,  even  in 
large  organised  units,  will  be  put  to  death.  No  living 
man  must  remain  in  our  rear."' 

More  will  be  heard  of  this  document  at  the  end  of 
the  war.  It  is  a  prized  possession  of  the  French  just 
now. 

Yet  our  wounded  Prussian  officer,  as  related  above, 
objected  to  our  murderous  artillery  fire,  and  said  that 
"  we  do  not  fight,  we  murder. ""  In  spite  of  the  tragic 
side  the  incident  has  some  humour. 

Dr.  Ludwig  Ganghofer,  a  Bavarian  Court  journalist, 
recently  described  a  visit  which  he  had  paid  to  a 
German  hospital  in  Lille.  He  there  saw  some  wounded 
British  prisoners.  Two  caught  his  eye,  and  thus  he 
writes  : 


BETHUNE  201 

"  As  I  regarded  these  two  sulky  pups  of  the  British 
lion,  I  had  a  feeling  as  if  every  hair  on  my  head  stood 
on  end.  This  unpleasant  irritation  only  ceased  when 
I  had  turned  my  German  back  on  the  sons  of  civilised 
Albion,  and  looked  again  at  suffering  human  beings." 

"  Suffering  human  beings  "  is  good ;  our  two  un- 
fortunate countrymen  were  not  human  beings.  They 
were  pups  of  the  British  lion — young  lions,  in  fact. 
The  German  appellation  for  us  is  improving.  Some 
weeks  ago  we  were  "  Swine  dogs,"  now  we  are  "  Young 
lions."  Ganghofer  is  the  Bavarian  Court  journalist. 
One  wonders  if  that  feudal  power  keeps  a  court  jester. 


CHAPTER   XV  I. 
SOME  MEDICAL  ODDS  AND  ENDS. 

FUNCTIONAL  BLINDNESS. 

At  Bethune  some  of  us  met  for  the  first  time  in  this 
war  cases  of  functional  temporary  blindness,  and  many 
other  cases  were  met  with  at  various  points  of  the 
front. 

The  following  example  will  give  an  idea  of  the 
condition.  A  young  officer,  nineteen  years  of  age, 
was  standing  by  a  haystack  in  the  north  of  France 
when  a  large  Black  Maria  burst  near  him,  rolled  him 
over,  and  plastered  him  with  clay,  but  did  not  kill  him. 
The  concussion  had  thrown  him  down.  He  remained 
unconscious  for  half  an  hour,  and  when  he  woke  to 
consciousness  he  discovered  he  was  "  blind."  His 
mental  state  then  was  terrible.  He  cried  out,  "  Oh,  why 
wasn't  I  killed  ?  "  "  Won't  some  one  carry  me  out  and 
put  me  on  the  parapet  of  a  trench  so  that  I  may  be 
killed  ?  "  His  grief  was  pathetic,  and  one  can  easily 
understand  it.  A  careful  examination  was  made  of 
the  interior  of  the  eyes  with  the  ophthalmoscope  and 
nothing  was  found  wrong.  He  was  assured  by  the 
medical  officers  that  he  would  certainly  recover  after 
perhaps  a  week  or  two  of  blindness.     He  was  quiet 

202 


SOME  MEDICAL  ODDS  AND  ENDS        203 

and  composed  after  this,  but  was  a  little  bit  suspicious 
that  we  were  only  trying  to  cheer  him  up.  One  medical 
officer  then  explained  to  him  what  sort  of  blindness  it 
was  :  that  it  was  due  to  concussion  of  the  nerve  of  sight, 
and  the  delicate  structures  at  the  ball  of  the  eye ;  that 
nothing  was  destroyed,  and  that  a  complete  rest  would 
bring  back  his  vision.  Next  day  he  was  transferred 
by  hospital  train  to  the  Base  en  route  for  England. 
This  note,  unknown  to  him,  was  pinned  on  his  coat : 
"  Functional  blindness.  Any  medical  officer  handling 
this  officer  on  Hospital  Train,  Base  Hospital,  or  Hospital 
Ship,  please  tell  him  that  he  will  fully  recover  his  sight." 
Knowing  the  kind-hearted  nature  of  the  medical  pro- 
fession, one  can  be  sure  that  he  was  cheered  up  all  the 
way  to  England.  I  received  a  letter  from  this  officer's 
mother  some  weeks  after,  saying  that  her  son  had 
completely  recovered  his  vision,  and  was  as  well  as 
ever. 

NERVE   CONCUSSION 

Nerve  concussion  Is  a  pathological  condition  that 
has  received  more  attention  in  this  war  than  at  any 
previous  time.  A  young  Fusilier  at  La  Bassee  was 
hit  by  a  bullet  through  the  fleshy  part  of  the  forearm. 
The  wound  was  a  purely  flesh  one  and  no  important 
nerve  could  have  been  struck.  He  had  paralysis  of 
the  wrist  and  hand,  due  to  concussion  of  the  important 
nerves  of  the  forearm.  The  bullet  in  its  course  did  not 
strike  these  nerves.  He  got  completely  better  in  eight 
weeks. 

A  Gordon  Highlander  was  struck  by  a  bullet  in  the 


204  A  SURGEON  IN  KHAKI 

right  buttock.  No  important  nerve  was  struck,  yet 
he  had  paralysis  of  the  limb  owing  to  concussion  of  the 
sciatic  nerve.  He  got  better  by  rest  in  bed  and  massage 
of  the  muscles.  A  soldier  of  the  Wiltshire  Regiment 
was  rolled  over  by  the  concussion  of  a  bursting  shell. 
He  retained  consciousness,  but  could  not  get  up  or  move 
his  right  arm.  The  right  side  of  his  body  was  paralysed. 
He  got  better  by  rest.  A  Bedfordshire  sergeant  got  a 
bullet  wound  through  the  upper  arm,  and  paralysis  of 
certain  muscles  supplied  by  nerves  in  the  vicinity  of  the 
track  of  the  bullet.  It  was  thought  that  the  nerves 
were  divided,  and  after  the  wound  had  healed  the  nerves 
were  exposed  at  an  operation  intending  to  join  the 
severed  ends.  The  nerves  were  found  to  be  uninjured, 
and  the  incision  in  the  skin  was  closed  up.  He  made 
a  complete  recovery. 

There  is  also  the  story  of  the  soldier  who  suddenly 
recovered  his  voice  in  the  presence  of  King  George. 
The  story  is  going  the  rounds  of  the  hospitals,  and  it  is 
said  that  His  Majesty  was  extraordinarily  interested 
in  the  phenomenon.  This  soldier  was  taken  prisoner 
by  the  Germans  during  our  retreat  from  Belgium. 
He  was  picked  off  the  field  in  a  dazed  condition  and 
unable  to  speak.  He  was  interned  later  in  a  prison 
camp  in  Germany  and  was  all  this  time  quite  unable 
to  speak.  When  the  exchange  of  permanently  disabled 
prisoners  of  war  was  recently  made  between  England 
and  Germany,  this  man  was  sent  back  as  permanently 
incapacitated  on  account  of  being  dumb.  He  was 
admitted  to  a  hospital  near  London.     One  day  the 


SOME  MEDICAL  ODDS  AND  ENDS        205 

King  visited  the  hospital,  and  this  man  on  getting 
up  from  his  chair  as  the  King  entered  the  ward,  in- 
advertently touched  a  heating  pipe  which  was  then 
very  hot.  He  at  once  exclaimed  "  Damn,"  and  was 
able  to  speak  perfectly  afterwards.  The  King  was 
very  much  interested.  Was  this  an  hysterical  loss  of 
voice  or  a  concussion  ?  It  was  a  mental  shock  of  some 
kind,  and  the  recovery  was  due  to  the  other  shock  of 
touching  a  hot  pipe. 

I  attended  one  young  officer  and  three  men  who  had 
been  buried  in  the  earth  when  their  trench  was  blown 
up.  The  officer  and  one  man  were  unconscious,  and 
when  the  man  recovered  consciousness  he  was  nervy 
and  excitable.  He  had  a  startled,  terrified  expression, 
and  when  in  bed  he  would  peer  round  in  a  wild,  anxious 
way,  and  then  suddenly  pull  the  blankets  well  over 
his  head  and  curl  up  underneath  as  if  anxious  to  shut 
out  his  surroundings,  or  what  he  thought  were  his 
surroundings.  He  seemed  really  to  be  living 
through  some  terrifying  experiences  of  the  past  few 
days  antecedent  and  up  to  the  time  when  his 
trench  was  blown  up  and  he  was  engulfed  in  the  mud 
and  debris. 

The  officer  recovered  consciousness  more  slowly,  and 
spoke  in  a  curious  staccato  speech ;  his  nerves  were 
completely  gone,  and  he  had  fine  tremors  of  the 
lips  aud  tongue  and  fingers.  He  told  me  that  his 
memory  had  gone,  that  he  had  only  a  hazy  recollec- 
tion of  recent  things,  which  seemed  far  away 
and  dim. 


206  A  SUEGEON  IN  KHAKI 

DEAF   MUTISM. 

Several  cases  of  deaf  mutism  have  occurred  during 
the  hard  fighting  near  Ypres  and  La  Bassee,  and  these 
are  certainly  very  curious.  The  men  so  afilicted  have 
written  down  that  shells  burst  near  them,  that  they 
were  thrown  down,  and  remembered  nothing  more  for 
a  time.  On  coming  to  again,  they  were  deaf  and  dumb. 
These  men  also  show  other  signs  of  nerve  shock ;  they 
are  restless,  troubled  with  sleeplessness,  and  have 
anxious  expressions.  Generally  all  get  completely  well 
in  a  few  weeks,  but  some  of  the  cases  remain  mute  for  a 
much  longer  time. 

LICE. 

The  medical  officer  at  the  front  to-day  has  other 
duties  besides  those  of  attending  to  the  sick  and 
wounded.  He  is  concerned  with  the  prevention  of 
disease,  with  water  supplies,  sanitation  of  billeting 
areas  and  camps,  means  to  prevent  frostbite,  and  so  on. 
He  has  also  to  advise  on  methods  of  treating  and 
avoiding  vermin.  Lice  are,  without  a  doubt,  one  of  the 
terrors  of  war.  These  little  beasts  are  not  harmless. 
They  take  a  high  place  in  the  sphere  of  destructive 
agents.  I  would  group  them  in  the  class  with  shrapnel 
bombs  and  high  explosives.  Wherever  many  men  are 
gathered  closely  together,  and  hygienic  laws,  owing  to 
military  needs,  are  in  temporary  abeyance,  there  will 
lice  be  found,  constituting  themselves  one  of  the  terrors 
of  war.  Officers  and  men  get  them,  and  once  these 
pests   gain   entry  to    one's   wardrobe    they  entrench 


SOME  MEDICAL  ODDS  AND  ENDS        207 

themselves  in  their  battalions  and  divisions,  and  require 
very  drastic  efforts  to  dislodge.  In  the  early  fighting 
in  Flanders  and  in  Northern  France,  on  the  Marne 
and  Aisne,  these  beasts  gave  us  great  trouble.  They 
are  most  active  at  night  when  one  gets  warm  in  bed. 
It  is  not  the  bite  that  counts,  but,  as  the  old  French 
Countess  once  expressed  it  to  a  Minister  of  State,  it 
is  "  toujours  le  promenade."  The  promenading 
causes  irritation  and  insomnia.  Scratching  produces 
excoriations  of  the  skin,  and  then  a  whole  lot  of  sequent 
complications.  Lice  are  factors  in  the  spread  of 
typhus  fever,  and  when  typhus  visits  an  army  in  the 
field  it  carries  death  and  desolation  to  thousands. 
To  illustrate  the  point  read  this  extract  from  a  letter 
written  from  an  English  hospital  in  Serbia  :  '*  The 
great  scourge  of  this  country  is  typhus  fever.  It  was 
introduced  by  the  Austrian  prisoners  at  Christmas. 
Out  of  2500  Austrian  prisoners  at  Uskub,  1000  had  died 
of  fever  and  1200  were  down  with  it.  It  is  a  terrible 
disease,  and  is  carried  not  by  infection  but  by  lice. 
One  has  to  take  tremendous  precautions  to  avoid  these 
creatures." 

The  majority  of  our  wounded  taken  from  the 
fighting  line  at  La  Bassee  to  the  hospital  at  Bethune 
were  infested  with  lice.  Lice  invaded  the  clothing 
of  all  who  handled  these  poor  fellows,  and  very  drastic 
measures  had  to  be  taken  to  combat  the  scourge. 

The  following  story  will  illustrate  the  vitality  of 
these  nasty  little  beasts.  Our  Field  Ambulance  once 
stopped  at  a  small  town  in  Northern  France  and  was 


208  A  SURGEON  IN  KHAKI 

billeted  in  a  Frencli  convent.  The  good  sisters  allowed 
us  the  use  of  the  schoolrooms,  the  kitchen,  and  some  of 
the  bedrooms.  All  the  officers  were  anxious  to  get  their 
shirts  and  linen  washed.  The  laundrywoman  duly- 
appeared  and  boiled  all  these  articles,  and  the  sisters 
ironed  them  for  us.  On  the  afternoon  of  the  ironing 
the  Mother  Superior  and  two  sisters  came  to  us  in  a 
state  of  excitement,  talking  rapidly,  and  evidently 
overcome  with  amazement.  They  explained  that  our 
shirts  had  been  boiled  and  then  dried  in  the  open  air. 
When  they  began  to  iron  the  necks  of  our  shirts  the 
lice  sprang  to  life  and  were  exceedingly  active.  They 
assured  us  solemnly  that  scores  sprang  to  active  life 
under  the  comfortable  warmth  of  the  hot  iron.  I  do 
not  doubt  the  story.  The  heat  had  matured  the 
chitinous  envelope  in  which  the  young  lice  lay,  and 
out  they  came,  joyous,  active,  and  sportive  on  the  nice 
warm  surface.  Hence  the  amazement,  the  uplifted 
hands,  and  the  consternation  of  the  good  sisters.  The 
riddle  of  their  extermination  has  not  yet  been  com- 
pletely solved,  but  measures  are  in  active  progress. 
It  is  an  unsavoury  subject,  but  it  is  a  very  important 
one  for  troops  in  camp  and  in  the  field. 

SHELL   FUMES. 

"Thou  shalt  not  kill, 
But  do  not  strive 
Officiously  to  keep  alive." 

A  great  deal  has  been  written  on  the  effect  of  shell 
fumes  in  this  war.  So  much  is  hearsay  and  so  little 
really  authentic,  that  one  cannot  dogmatise. 


SOME  MEDICAL  ODDS  AND  ENDS        209 

One  naval  surgeon  said  that  men  exposed  to  fumes 
of  bursting  shells  develop  acute  pneumonia,  which 
proves  fatal  as  a  rule.  This  is  supposed  to  be  due  to 
the  nitric  peroxide  produced  by  the  explosion. 

Artillery  officers  have  told  me  that  stories  were  going 
the  round  of  the  batteries  that  the  Germans  fired 
certain  shells  at  our  aeroplanes  which,  on  burst- 
ing, set  free  certain  gases  which  intoxicated  the 
aviators. 

A  French  gunner-major  circumstantially  related 
that  a  German  trench  which  had  been  heavily  shelled 
with  turpinite  shells  was  found  full  of  dead  Germans, 
standing  or  sitting  in  life-like  attitudes  and  with  faces 
quite  hlacJc.  He  said  that  the  look-out  man  was  lying 
in  his  natural  attitude  holding  field-glasses  to  his  eyes. 
He  was  apparently  alive,  but  was  really  dead,  stiff, 
and  with  black  face  and  hands.  These  statements 
have  not  been  confirmed,  but  the  stories  of  similar 
incidents  are  many.  There  is  no  doubt  that  lyddite 
and  melinite  fumes  can,  when  inhaled,  produce  sudden 
poisonous  changes.  I  have  myself  seen  British  soldiers 
and  German  prisoners,  after  having  been  exposed  to 
these  fumes,  come  in  with  deeply  yellow  jaundiced 
skin.  One  man,  in  fact,  looked  exactly  like  a  man 
suffering  from  acute  jaundice. 

It  is  also  said  that  the  fumes  induce  drowsiness. 
Turpinite  shells  were  employed  at  one  stage  of  the  war 
and  are  to  be  employed  again.  M.  Turpin  has  recently 
been  at  the  front  with  a  French  battery.  Certainly 
turpinite  does  emit  dangerous  fumes.  Many  believe 
14 


210  A  SURGEON  IN  KHAKI 

that  it  is  some  form  of  cyanogen  gas — allied  to  prussic 
acid. 

The  force  of  these  high  explosives  is  well  illustrated 
by  an  occurrence  of  25th  January.  Previous  to  making 
an  assault  the  Germans  fired  a  mine  under  our  front 
trench  near  the  railway  east  of  Cuinchy.  The  ex- 
plosion hurled  a  piece  of  rail  weighing  25  lbs.  a  distance 
of  over  a  mile,  into  a  field  close  to  where  some  of  our 
men  were  working. 

It  is  reported  that  on  1st  February  the  detonation 
of  one  of  our  lyddite  shells  in  the  enemy  trenches  on 
the  embankment  south  of  the  canal,  threw  a  German 
soldier  right  across  the  railway  and  the  canal  amongst 
our  men  on  the  north  side  of  the  latter. 

At  Fort  Conde,  on  the  Aisne,  the  air  concussion  of  a 
bursting  shell  from  a  French  75  mm.  lifted  a  large 
four-wheeled  country  waggon  bodily  out  of  a  yard 
and  planted  it  on  the  roof  of  a  barn.  The  waggon  was 
not  injured.  A  bursting  shell  is  the  very  incarnation 
of  violence.  Lord  Fisher  said  that  "  The  Essence  of 
War  is  Violence.  Moderation  in  War  is  Imbecility. 
Hit  first.  Hit  hard.  Hit  everywhere."  The  big 
shells  to-day  do  all  this. 

The  fumes  emitted  by  bursting  charges  of  lyddite, 
melinite,  or  turpinite  must  not  be  confused  with  the 
poison  gases  sent  out  over  our  men  by  the  Germans. 
The  lyddite  and  melinite  are  put  in  the  shells  for  a 
definite  object  which  is  permitted  by  the  Hague  Con- 
vention, and  by  the  opinion  of    mankind  generally. 


SOME  MEDICAL  ODDS  AND  ENDS        211 

Their  object  is  to  burst  the  shell  at  the  desired  time 
and  distance,  and  plaster  the  enemy  with  the  iron  or 
shrapnel.  They  are  not  intended  to  kill,  and  do  not 
kill  by  poisonous  fumes.  The  German  poison  gas 
is  intended  to  kill,  and  does  produce  intolerable  agony 
and  lingering  deaths,  and  for  this  the  German  stands 
accused  before  High  Heaven. 

NEURASTHENIA   OR    "  NERVES." 

Many  officers  and  some  men  have  been  sent  back 
from  the  front  in  France  and  Flanders  suffering  from 
Nerves.  These  men  are  not  "  nervous  "  as  the  public 
generally  understand  that  term.  They  are  brave 
and  courageous  men  who  are  anxious  to  do  their  duty. 
They  are,  moreover,  men  who  have  done  their  duty 
in  the  face  of  a  determined  foe,  have  endured  great 
hardships  and  discomforts  in  the  trenches  and  batteries, 
and  have  faced  death  in  all  the  many  hellish  shapes 
that  it  assumes  to-day.  I  said  "  many  officers  and 
some  men  "  have  been  so  afflicted,  and  it  is  true  that 
the  officer  is  much  more  prone  to  get  *'  nerves  "  than  is 
the  simple  soldier.  The  life  of  the  officer  is  one  of 
responsibility  and  worry,  but  the  soldier's  mental  lot 
is  simpler — he  just  does  what  he  is  told  and  has 
"  not  to  reason  why."'  The  education  and  upbringing 
of  the  officer  are  different,  as  a  rule,  from  that  of  the 
soldier,  and  heredity  has  an  influence  on  a  man's 
nervous  organisation.  In  civil  life  anyone  can  call  to 
mind  certain  boys  and  girls  who  are  more  "  nervous  " 
than  others.     I  do  not  mean  more  afraid  of  danger  or 


212  A  SURGEON  IN  KHAKI 

more  effeminate,  but  more  likely  to  be  exalted  or 
depressed  by  certain  circumstances  than  their  more 
stolid  neighbours.  What  is  true  of  homes  and  of 
schools  is  equally  true  of  nations.  Unreal  though  it 
sounds,  there  is  no  doubt  that  the  Germans  are  more 
emotional  than  the  French,  and  German  leaders  know 
full  well  the  emotional  side  of  their  people.  The  German 
is  easily  exalted  and  can  be  easily  depressed.  The 
Frenchman  can  be  made  furiously  angry  when  he  is 
affronted  or  insulted,  but  he  is  not  easily  depressed, 
and  he  is  too  cautious  to  be  easily  exalted.  The  German 
soldier  and  people  must  be  strengthened  and  mentally 
sustained  by  stories  of  German  victories  and  prowess, 
but  the  Frenchman,  like  the  Englishman,  is  most 
formidable  when  he  knows  the  worst  there  is  to  know 
and  is  "  up  against  things." 

It  may  be  that  our  officers  who  develop  neur- 
asthenia at  the  front  are  more  emotional  and  imagina- 
tive than  those  who  do  not,  but  they  are  no  less 
courageous.  An  officer  was  sent  to  England  for 
neurasthenia,  and  felt  ashamed  to  tell  his  friends  that 
he  was  sent  back  as  his  "  nerve  was  gone."  He  was 
not  in  the  list  of  wounded,  yet  his  brain  and  nervous 
system  had  received  a  wound  as  much  as  the  man  with 
a  bullet -hole  through  his  shoulder,  and  the  treatment 
for  these  "  mental  wounds  "  is  like  that  for  most  other 
wounds,  "  time  and  rest,"  but  the  mental  wound 
also  requires  quietness.  The  officer  with  the  mental 
wound,  the  nerve  shock,  the  neurasthenia,  cannot  be 
treated  successfully  in  the   general  wards  of  a  noisy 


SOME  MEDICAL  ODDS  AND  ENDS        213 

hospital.  He  must  be  put  in  quiet  and  peaceful 
surroundings  and  live  in  an  atmosphere  free  from 
noise,  bustle,  and  commotion.  His  treatment  must 
also  be  directed  by  physicians  who  are  authorities  on 
this  subject.  A  successful  general  practitioner  or  a 
renowned  obstetrician  are  not  likely  to  achieve  brilliant 
results  in  treating  neurasthenia. 

Fortunately  the  medical  profession  has  already 
arranged  special  provision  for  these  nerve  cases,  and 
the  results,  I  am  sure,  will  be  eminently  good. 

At  Bethune  one  able  artillery  ojQ&cer  was  brought  into 
the  Clearing  Hospital  suffering  from  neurasthenia.     He 
had  been  through  the  retreat,  the  fighting  on  the  Marne 
and  Aisne,  and  at  La  Bassee,  and  had  done  splendid 
service   with    his    battery,   and    had    been  promoted. 
When  I  saw  him  he  was  walking  up  and  down  a  room  like 
a  caged  animal.     I  wished  him  good  morning,  and  he 
pulled  up  suddenly  in  his  stride,  gazed  at  me  with  widely 
open  eyes,  and  replied  in  a  hesitating  staccato  voice, 
'  Gr-g-good    m-m-morning,    doctor."    He    had    never 
stuttered  before.     Then  away  he  went  up  and  down 
again.     I  got  him  to  sit  down  on  a  box  and  told  him  to 
light  his  pipe  and  talk  about  himself.     He  filled  his 
pipe  with  difficulty,  stuffing  the  tobacco  into  the  bowl 
with  trembling  and  agitated  fingers.     He  broke  several 
wooden  matches  in  trying  to  light  them.     He  had  lost 
the  fine,  practised  discrimination  necessary  to  rub  a 
match  on  the  side  of  the  box,  and  he  "  jabbed  "  his 
match  hard  on  it.     I  lit  a  match  and  gave  it  to  him,  as  I 
was  interested  to  see  how  he  would  light  the  pipe.     He 


214  A  SURGEON  IN  KHAKI 

let  that  match  fall.     I  lit  another,  and  with  this  he 
burned  his  finger.     I  then  held  a  lighted  match  over 
his  pipe,  and  in  a  jerky  way  he  managed  to  light  the 
tobacco  ;  but  he  could  not  smoke  properly,  and  the  pipe 
soon  went  out .     In  the  same  j  erky  way  he  told  me  that  he 
was  forty-four  years  of  age  and  had  never  been  ill  before. 
He  was  a  good  rifle  shot,  and  had  killed  big  game  in 
India.     He  was  a  fair  billiard  player,  and  had  been  a 
temperate    man   all    his    life   in   all   things.      Talking 
in  his  spasmodic  fashion,  he  had  to  stop  for  a  word, 
and  he  then  waved  his  hand  about  and  frowned,  as  if 
angry  with  himself  for  having  forgotten  it.     Up  till  a 
week  ago  he  had  been  in  perfect  health,  although  the 
"  strain  "  of  the  war  had  been  tremendous ;  then  one 
of  his  brother  officers  and  a  sergeant  had  been  killed 
close  beside  him,  and  his  guns  had  to  be  moved  to  an- 
other position  under  a  heavy  fire.     He  could  not  sleep 
that  night,  and  the  firing  of  the  guns,  which  previously 
had  not  troubled  him  in  the  least,  now  worried  him. 
Next  day  he  could  not  eat.     In  a  few  days  he  was  a 
physical  and  mental  wreck.     He  was  sent  to  England, 
and  I  heard  that  he  had  made  a  complete  recovery. 

One  officer  developed  neurasthenia  on  the  Aisne. 
His  regiment  had  done  brilliantly,  but  had  suffered 
severe  losses.  The  officer  said  that  he  was  going  to 
blow  his  brains  out,  so  he  was  invalided  into  the  hands 
of  the  doctors  and  later  made  a  good  recovery.  He 
was  suffering  from  the  effects  of  strain  and  mental 
shock. 

Another  officer  on  the  staff  was  standing  close  by  his 


SOME  MEDICAL  ODDS  AND  ENDS        215 

chief  when  a  shell  fell  near,  killing  his  chief  outright. 
The  staff  officer  had  to  be  sent  home  for  neurasthenia. 

Our  wounded  often  show  signs  of  neurasthenia. 
I  well  remember  at  the  hospital  at  Bethune  one  man  who 
had  had  to  have  his  arm  off  at  the  shoulder  joint  for  a 
bad  shrapnel  wound.  He  was  dangerously  ill  and  semi- 
conscious for  several  days.  When  he  had  fully  roused 
to  his  surroundings  and  the  knowledge  of  his  weak- 
ness he  was  like  a  little  child,  crying  and  begging  me 
to  get  him  away  from  the  sound  of  the  firing.  He  said 
that  he  would  be  happy  if  only  he  could  get  away  to 
some  place  where  he  would  not  hear  the  sound  of  the 
guns.  On  the  day  the  German  aeroplane  dropped  a 
bomb  near  the  hospital  the  windows  of  the  building 
shook  and  rattled  with  the  concussion,  and  this  poor 
devil  screamed  aloud  with  terror  and  tried  to  get  out  of 
bed  and  crawl  away — anywhere  from  the  sound  of  the 
firing. 

The  French  nursing  sisters  told  me  that  the  wounded 
Frenchmen  work  themselves  into  a  terrible  state  of 
excitement  in  hospital  when  the  firing  is  very  brisk. 
They  beg  and  beg  to  be  taken  away  to  the  south  of 
France,  as  far  away  as  possible  from  the  sound  of  con- 
flict. 

These  were  all  brave  men  with  injured  nervous 
systems. 

SMALL   ARM   AMMUNITION. 

The  Germans  have  charged  the  British,  French, 
Russians,  and  Belgians  with  using  Dum-Dum  bullets. 
The  Austrians  have  made  the  same  charge  against  the 


216  A  SURGEON  IN  KHAKI 

Serbians  and  Montenegrins.  The  Triple  Entente  and  its 
Allies  have  accused  the  Germans  and  Austrians  of  firing 
Dum-Dum  bullets — so  there  you  are. 

The  Dum-Dum  bullet  was  first  made  at  Dum-Dum, 
near  Calcutta.  It  was  a  Lee-Enfield  bullet  with  an 
imperfect  nickel  sheath.  This  nickel  or  cupro-nickel 
sheath  in  the  Dum-Dum  stops  at  the  ''  shoulder  "  of 
the  bullet,  and  the  point  is  therefore  bare  lead,  a  con- 
tinuation of  the  core  of  the  bullet.  Some  modifications 
of  the  Dum-Dum  exist .  By  rubbing  the  point  of  a  nickel- 
coated  Lee-Enfield  bullet  on  a  rough  stone  the  cover  is 
rubbed  of?,  exposing  the  core  of  lead.  A  saw  or  file  can 
make  incisions  in  the  long  axis  of  the  bullet  exposing 
the  lead  this  way,  but  leaving  the  tip  covered  with 
nickel.  The  destiny  of  a  Dum-Dum  is  to  break  up  when 
it  strikes  a  bone.  If  it  strikes  a  bone  at  a  high  rate  of 
velocity  it  fragments  and  rips  and  tears  the  bone  and 
surrounding  soft  structures.  It  is  supposed  to  have 
greater  "  stopping  power  "  against  an  infantry  charge 
than  an  undeformed  bullet.  This  supposition  is  in- 
correct. Certainly  a  Dum-Dum  in  traversing  a  limb  or 
the  chest  can  cause  terrible  and  widespread  destruction. 
In  wounds  inflicted  by  a  Dum-Dum  bits  of  the  lead  core 
and  casing  are  scattered  in  various  directions.  But, 
— and  this  is  important, — the  same  thing  can  be  found 
in  a  wound  inflicted  by  an  undeformed  Lee-Metford, 
Lebel,  or  Mauser  bullet.  The  only  certain  proof  of  the 
employment  of  the  Dum-Dums  is  to  find  them  in  the 
trenches  captured  from  the  enemy,  or  in  the  cartridge 
belts  of   wounded  or   prisoners.     Again,   a  man  may 


SOME  MEDICAL  ODDS  AND  ENDS        217 

have  a  bullet  wound  with  a  small  entrance  hole  and 
a  large,  gaping,  jagged  exit.  One  unaccustomed  to 
bullet  wounds  would  immediately  say  that  such  a  wound 
was  caused  by  an  explosive  bullet.  But  it  can  be  caused 
by  the  ordinary  Lee-Metford,  Lebel,  and  Mauser  bullets. 
I  have  seen  these  wounds  frequently  amongst  Germans, 
French,  and  British.  The  explanation  is  that  the  bullet 
on  striking  a  bone  often  carries  along  with  it  a  fragment, 
large  or  small,  and  it  is  this  fragment  of  bone  that  tears 
out  a  passage  to  the  exit  wound.  The  German  bullet 
is  easily  extracted  from  the  cartridge.  It  is  almost 
impossible  to  extract  the  Lee-Metford  bullet  without 
strong  instruments.  The  Germans  have  made  use  of  this 
fact  to  extract  the  bullet  from  the  cartridge  and  put  it 
back  "  upside  down,"  that  is,  with  the  nickel  point  inside 
the  metal  cartridge  case,  and  the  base  with  its  exposed 
lead  core  outwards.  Such  a  bullet  on  striking  a  bone 
expands  and  fragments,  and  causes  great  damage. 
I  am  not  repeating  a  rumour  when  I  make  this  state- 
ment. I  have  seen  these  cartridges  with  the  inverted 
bullets  in  the  belts  of  German  prisoners  captured  in  the 
trenches.  Other  surgeons  have  seen  them  also.  The 
French  say  that  it  is  a  common  practice  amongst  the 
Germans,  and  so  did  our  men  at  Ypres,  One  German 
prisoner  on  the  Yser  when  confronted  with  these  bullets 
taken  from  his  own  belt,  admitted  having  used  them. 
He  said  that  his  company  officer  told  him  that  they  were 
useful  to  break  down  barbed- wire  entanglements  ! 

There  is  one  interesting   point  about  the  German 
bullet,  and  that  is  its  property  of  spinning  on  its  short 


218  A  SUKGEON  IN  KHAKI 

axis  when  it  strikes  an  object.  The  centre  of  gravity 
of  the  German  bullet  is  low  down  on  its  base,  owing  to  its 
long  and  tapering  shoulder.  It  therefore  turns  over  on 
reaching  its  object.  I  had  on  the  Aisne  one  man  of  the 
Norfolk  Regiment  admitted  with  a  tiny  entrance  wound 
between  the  great  and  second  toes  of  the  foot.  The 
bullet  was  found  lodged  in  the  large  heel  bone,  and  its 
base  was  facing  towards  the  entrance  wound.  It  could 
not  have  entered  the  foot  in  that  position,  because  the 
entrance  wound  was  too  small.  A  bullet  spinning 
round  when  traversing  a  limb  can  cause  considerably 
more  damage  than  one  that  pursues  a  direct  course, 
and  this  fact  is  important  in  brain  injuries.  The  bullet 
penetrates  the  skull  by  a  small  punctured  opening,  and 
then  whirls  round  and  round  inside  the  brain.  It 
may  then  again  strike  the  bone  on  the  other  side  with  its 
long  axis  and  cause  considerable  shattering  and  bleeding. 
This  spinning  action  of  the  Mauser  was  a  thing  that 
every  surgeon  had  to  remember  when  treating  his 
wounded. 

The  Hague  Convention  of  1907  prohibits  "  the  use 
of  projectiles  calculated  to  cause  unnecessary  suffering." 
The  Hague  Declarations  of  1899  decide  to  "  abstain 
from  the  use  of  bullets  which  expand  or  flatten  easily 
in  the  human  body,"  such  as  bullets  with  a  hard  envelope 
which  does  not  entirely  cover  the  core  or  is  pierced  with 
incisions.  The  St.  Petersburg  Declaration  of  1868 
agrees  to  abolish  the  use  of  "  any  projectile  of  a  weight 
below  400  grams  which  is  either  explosive  or  charged 
with  fulminating  or  inflammable  substances." 


SOME  MEDICAL  ODDS  AND  ENDS        219 

The  British  Medical  Journal  of  21st  November  1914 
reports  as  follows  on  the  subject  of  small  arm  ammuni- 
tion : 

The  British  service  ammunition  is  known  technic- 
ally as  Mark  vii.  -303  S.A.  Ammunition.  The  length  of 
the  bullet  is  1*28  inches ;  weight,  174  grains ;  muzzle 
velocity,  2440  feet  per  second.  The  bullet  is  a  pointed 
one  with  an  envelope  of  cupro-nickel  which  completely 
covers  the  core  except  at  the  base.  The  ordinary 
German  service  ammunition  is  very  similar.  Length  of 
bullet,  1*105  inches ;  weight,  154  grains ;  muzzle 
velocity,  2970  feet  per  second.  This  bullet  is  pointed, 
with  a  steel  envelope  coated  with  cupro-nickel  covering 
the  cone  except  at  the  base.  Both  bullets  carry  out 
the  provisions  of  the  Hague  Convention. 

There  is  clear  evidence  that  Germany  has  not 
confined  herself  solely  to  this  unobjectionable  ammuni- 
tion. Her  troops,  both  in  Togoland  and  in  France, 
have  been  proved  to  have  used  bullets  with  a  soft  core 
and  hard,  thin  envelope  not  entirely  covering  the  core, 
which  type  of  bullet  is  expanding  and  therefore  expressly 
prohibited  by  the  Hague  Convention. 

Such  bullets,  of  no  less  than  three  types,  were  found 
on  the  bodies  of  dead  native  soldiers  serving  with  the 
German  armed  forces  against  British  troops  in  Togoland 
in  August,  and  on  the  persons  of  German,  European, 
and  native  armed  troops  captured  by  us  in  that  colony. 
All  the  British  wounded  treated  in  the  British  hospitals 
during  the  operations  in  Togoland  were  wounded  by 
soft -nosed  bullets  of  large  calibre,  and  the  injuries  which 


220  A  SURGEON  IN  KHAKI 

these  projectiles  inflicted,  in  marked  contrast  to  those 
treated  by  the  British  medical  staff  amongst  the  German 
wounded,  were  extremely  severe,  bones  being  shattered 
and  the  tissue  so  extensively  damaged  that  amputation 
had  to  be  performed.  The  use  of  these  bullets  was  the 
subject  of  a  written  protest  by  the  general  officer 
commanding  the  British  troops  in  Nigeria  to  the  German 
acting  governor  of  Togoland. 

Again  at  Gundelu,  in  France,  on  19th  September 
1914,  soft-nosed  bullets  were  found  on  the  dead  bodies 
of  German  soldiers  of  the  Landwehr,  and  on  the  persons 
of  soldiers  of  the  Landwehr  made  prisoners  of  war  by 
the  British  troops.  One  of  these  bullets  has  reached 
the  War  Office.  It  is  undoubtedly  expanding  and 
directly  prohibited  by  the  Hague  Convention.  I  am 
sure  that  Germany  will  be  terribly  upset  at  this,  for 
Germany,  we  know,  pays  great  respect  to  the  articles 
of  the  Hague  Convention  ! 


CHAPTER   XVII. 
WE  LEAVE  BETHUNE. 

One  afternoon  a  German  aeroplane  dropped  a  bomb  at 
the  hospital  gate,  and  a  second  one  on  a  house  near  the 
gate.  They  burst  with  a  terrific  crash,  shook  the 
building  and  rattled  the  glass  and  startled  us  all.  The 
same  voyaging  Taube  dropped  another  bomb  in  the 
square  of  the  city,  and  an  old  woman,  a  man,  and  a 
baby  were  struck.  The  old  lady  had  to  have  her  leg 
amputated  and  died  on  the  succeeding  day  ;  the  man 
received  a  shell  wound  in  the  back  of  the  head  and  he 
died  a  few  days  afterwards  ;  the  baby  was  injured  in 
the  stomach  and  also  died  next  day.  One  of  our  Army 
Service  Corps  men  was  struck  by  a  piece  of  shell  on  the 
leg  and  received  a  serious  wound.  A  corporal  of  the 
Army  Service  ran  upstairs  to  me  in  the  ward  where  I 
was  busy  dressing  some  cases  and  excitedly  told  me 
that  his  back  was  broken  and  that  he  thought  he  would 
soon  be  paralysed.  We  undressed  him  and  found  that 
a  small  piece  of  shell  had  made  a  slight  wound  on  the 
muscles  of  the  back,  but  that  he  was  otherwise  all  right. 
He  was  reassured  about  the  paralysis  and  the  broken 
back.  Two  days  afterwards  another  German  aeroplane 
— or  it  may  have  been  the  same  beast  that  had  visited 


222  A  SURGEON  IN  KHAKI 

us  before — flew  over  the  city  and  dropped  some  more 
bombs,  killing  some  unfortunate  people  and  injuring 
others. 

On  the  following  morning  at  three  o'clock  I  was  in 
one  of  the  wards  admitting  some  wounded  men  just  in 
from  the  trenches,  when  the  unmistakable  burst  of  a 
Black  Maria  was  heard  close  at  hand.  The  shell  had 
burst  not  far  from  the  hospital,  and  was  followed  by- 
two  more,  one  near  the  railway  station,  and  one  near 
the  college  not  far  away.  The  Germans  had  the  range 
perfectly,  and  we  expected  a  big  bombardment.  The 
authorities  decided  that  Bethune  was  no  longer  a  safe 
place  for  our  Clearing  Hospitals,  and  we  were  ordered 
to  prepare  for  the  evacuation  of  our  wounded  as  soon 
as  possible.  This  was  soon  done,  and  all  were  conveyed 
by  ambulance  motors  to  the  hospital  trains,  with  the 
exception  of  seven  men.  These  men  were  all  dying 
from  severe  injuries  to  the  brain,  and  no  good  would 
be  served  by  sending  them  down  to  the  Base.  So  the 
seven  poor  fellows  were  put  in  beds  alongside  each 
other  in  one  ward,  and  in  three  days  they  were  dead, 
and  buried  in  the  now  well-filled  cemetery  at  Bethune. 

The  two  Clearing  Hospitals  in  the  city — British  and 
Indian — were  sent  to  Chocques,  near  Lillers. 

It  was  with  a  little  heartache  that  I  left  Bethune 
and  its  good  sisters.  We  had  passed  through  days  and 
nights  of  racking  work  and  worry,  and  we  had  the 
satisfaction  of  feeling  that  we  had  all  done  our  best. 
It  is  mournful  to  leave  a  place  associated  with  many 
stirring  episodes  and  with  many  warm  friendships,  for 


WE  LEAVE  BETHUNE  223 

in  times  like  those  at  Bethime  firm  friendships  were 
quickly  made.  In  saying  good-bye  one  seems  to  leave 
them  behind  for  ever — and  that  is  always  sad. 

The  nuns  at  this  hospital  were  simply  splendid  all 
through,  and  I  can  quite  understand  how  the  religious 
sisters  have  come  to  their  own  again  in  France. 

From  the  earliest  times  and  up  till  about  eight  years 
ago  all  the  nursing  in  the  French  hospitals  was  done 
by  sisters  belonging  to  the  various  religious  orders. 
Then  came  one  of  the  big  political  upheavals  for  which 
France  has  been  so  noted  in  the  past,  and  the  nursing 
sisters  gradually  disappeared  from  the  hospitals  owing 
to  the  hostility  of  the  State  to  the  Church  and  all 
connected  with  it.  The  nursing  sisters  of  these  orders 
were  at  the  time  of  this  change  well-trained  medical 
and  surgical  nurses.  As  they  were  no  longer  able 
to  exercise  their  professional  skill,  and  no  more 
of  the  younger  nuns  were  trained  in  nursing,  it 
followed  that  on  the  outbreak  of  war  only  the  older 
nuns  were  capable  of  undertaking  skilled  nursing  in 
the  many  hospitals.  The  demand  for  nurses  was  a 
clamant  one,  for  from  the  very  beginning  of  the 
war  there  were  large  casualties.  It  was  said  that  the 
nursing  by  the  lay  sisters  who  succeeded  the  religious 
sisters  was  not  of  such  a  high  order  as  in  the  old  days 
owing  to  the  absence  of  the  strict  and  rigid  discipline, 
the  very  fibre  of  the  life  of  a  sister  in  religion.  I  have 
heard  this  both  from  French  surgeons  and  from  visiting 
British  surgeons. 

When  the  war  broke  out  France  was  as  ill  prepared 


224  A  SURGEON  IN  KHAKI 

in  her  military  medical  branch  as  we  were,  and  she  was 
suddenly  confronted  with  the  problem  of  handling  and 
treating  many  thousands  of  wounded. 

M.  Clemenceau,  an  ex-Premier  of  France  and  a 
Doctor  of  Medicine,  is  also  the  editor  of  L'Homme 
Enchaine.  At  the  outbreak  of  war  this  journal  was 
known  as  L'Homme  Libre,  and  Clemenceau  so  violently 
attacked  the  medical  disorganisation  and  lack  of  pre- 
paration that  the  paper  was  promptly  suppressed.  It, 
however,  emerged  next  day  under  its  new  title,  The 
Man  in  Chains,  and  under  this  title  appears  daily  in 
Paris. 

Clemenceau *s  efforts,  however,  were  continued,  and 
France  soon  had  everything  in  good  going  order.  It 
was  at  this  critical  phase  that  the  Franciscan  sisters, 
and  the  sisters  of  other  religious  orders,  quietly  took 
their  places  beside  the  wounded  French  soldiers.  Just 
as  quietly  they  opened  up  their  convents,  churches, 
and  buildings,  warehouses,  chateaux,  cottages,  railway 
waiting-rooms,  and  turned  them  into  hospitals  for 
the  wounded  and  sick  men.  Working  tirelessly  night 
and  day,  knowing  no  fatigue  and  shrinking  from 
no  task  or  danger,  and  glorying  in  their  mission,  they 
performed  marvels.  The  younger  sisters  were  put  to 
subordinate  nursing  duties,  and  so  rigorously  trained 
by  the  elder  ones  in  the  principles  of  nursing. 

These  juniors  are  now  very  competent  nurses, 
for  they  learn  quickly  amongst  the  ample  material  that 
war  provides.  The  wounded  French  soldier  loves  and 
idolises  the  nursing  sister.     He  demands  her  presence, 


WE  LEAVE  BETHUNE  225 

and  makes  lier  his  confidante.  The  nun  is  supremely 
happy  to  be  back  in  her  old  place,  and  pets  and  humours 
the  wounded  soldier,  soothes  his  ardent  soul,  and,  by 
her  skill,  heals  his  wounds. 

I  do  not  thinlc  that  any  future  government  of 
France  will  ever  dare  to  oust  the  religious  sisters  from 
the  hospitals.  These  quiet-voiced,  simple-robed  women, 
carrying  help  and  compassionate  pity  in  the  welter  of 
blood  and  slaughter,  have  come  "  to  their  own  "  again. 

When  writing  of  the  religious  orders  one  naturally 
thinks  of  the  priests  of  France,  and  one  of  the  many 
interesting  and  instructive  evolutions  taking  place 
during  this  war  is  that  of  the  changing  relation  of  the 
people  and  State  towards  the  Catholic  Church. 

One  has  only  to  be  a  little  time  with  the  French 
troops  in  the  field  to  recognise  and  be  impressed  by 
their  deep  attachment  to  the  Catholic  Church.  I 
visited  many  churches  in  France  and  Belgium  during 
the  earlier  stages  of  the  war,  and  at  all  hours,  and  have 
always  found,  sometimes  few,  sometimes  many,  Belgian 
and  French  soldiers  on  their  knees  and  devoutly  at 
prayer  in  the  sacred  buildings.  Women,  of  course, 
were  always  to  be  seen  there,  but  that  was  not  sur- 
prising.    It  was  surprising  to  see  so  many  soldiers. 

The  French  soldier  takes  his  religion  seriously  in 
these  days,  and  is  not  ashamed,  whenever  the  oppor- 
tunity occurs,  to  enter  a  church  and  pray.  It  was 
rare  to  see  a  khaki  soldier  praying  in  church  ;  one  often 
saw  them  there  on  visits  of  curiosity  gazing  at  the  old 
windows  and  old  scroll-work  of  the  churches.  The 
15 


226  A  SURGEON  IN  KHAKI 

British   soldier  will   always   attend  a  churcli   parade, 
and  he  will  be  most  reverent  during  a  service,  and  will 
sing  lustily  and  amen  loudly ;  but  a  church  parade  is  to 
him  very  often  a  drill,  and  Tommy  cheerfully  attends  a 
drill   parade   because   it   is   his    duty  to.     In  reading 
letters  from  British  soldiers  at  the  front  and  comparing 
them  with  those  of  French  soldiers  one  cannot  help 
being  struck   by  the  religious   serious  note  pervading 
those  of  the  latter,  and  its  absence  in  the  former.     It 
may  be  that  we  are  less  emotional  than  the  French, 
and  as  a  nation  are  shy  of  writing  of  our  inner  selves. 
It  was  my  duty  once  to  censor  the  letters  written  by 
wounded  men  in  a  Clearing  Hospital  at  the  front.     The 
letters  were  distinctly  humorous  at  times ;    only  two 
discussed  matters  of  faith.     In  one  a  soldier  was  writing 
to  his  mother,  and  he  said,  "  I  pray  every  day  as  I 
promised  you  to.     I  pray  standing  up,  and  always  time 
my  prayer  for  three  o'clock  in  the  afternoon,  for  that 
is  the  time  when  the  fellows  over  the  way  let  off  most 
of   their  big  guns  and  rifles  at  us."     This  man  was 
either  a  wag  and  teasing  his  mother,  or  he  really  believed 
in  the  efficacy  of  surrounding  himself  with  an  atmo- 
sphere of   prayer  when  the  enemy  fire  was  hottest. 
The  other  fervent  letter  was  from  a  soldier  who  had 
received  a  slight  shell  wound  of  the  scalp.     His  was 
a  letter  written   to  a  clergyman   near   London.     This 
warrior  informed  the  clergyman  that  he  prayed  silently 
amongst  his  comrades,  and   daily  read  a  passage  out 
of   his   Testament.     The   letter    ended   up  by  asking 
the  clergyman  to  send  him  some  Woodbine  cigarettes, 


WE  LEAVE  BETHUNE  227 

as  he,  the  writer,  hadn't  had  a  smoke  for  a  fortnight 
and  saw  no  chance  of  getting  one.  I  showed  this 
letter  to  our  field  chaplain,  who  visited  this  Christian 
soldier  in  the  ward.  The  chaplain  told  me  afterwards 
that  the  man  was  absolutely  destitute  of  any  religious 
beliefs,  and  had  never  read  a  Testament  in  his  life ;  and 
furthermore — that  he  had  three  packets  of  Woodbine 
cigarettes,  and  had  also  smoked  a  considerable  number 
during  the  past  fortnight. 

French  officers  have  told  me  that  before  the  war 
it  was  considered  bad  form  for  a  military  officer  to 
attend  Mass,  and  that  an  officer  who  attended  Mass 
regularly  need  not  expect  promotion  in  the  Army. 
Attending  Mass  is  not  considered  bad  form  to-day,  and 
soldiers  of  all  grades  from  general  to  grenadier  attend 
the  services  in  the  field.  Was  the  religious  trait  there 
all  the  time,  and  only  held  back  by  the  conventional 
strictness,  or  has  the  seriousness  of  the  war  compelled 
a  little  self-analysis  and  a  return  to  the  faith  of  their 
fathers  ?  My  impression  is  that  the  priests  and  the 
nursing  sisters  of  the  religious  orders  have  helped  to 
stir  up  this  present  state  amongst  a  people  who  have 
always  been,  deep  down,  much  attached  to  their  Church 
and  its  religious  observances.  Even  the  Reign  of 
Terror  could  not  stamp  out  the  influence  of  the  Church 
in  France,  although  it  turned  churches  into  meat  marts 
and  blacksmiths'  forges,  and  plastered  their  walls  with 
"  Liberte,  Egalite,  Fraternite."  The  French  priest  has 
no  official  status  in  the  State.  He  is  simply  a  citizen, 
and  is  liable,  like  all  other  citizens,  to  be  mobilised  for 


228  A  SURGEON  IN  KHAKI 

military  duty.  Over  20,000  French  priests  and  brothers 
of  various  orders  are  serving  with  the  French  colours 
in  this  war.  I  have  spoken  to  French  priests  about 
this  law  that  compels  them  to  serve  as  soldiers.  They 
do  not  cavil  at  it,  and,  in  fact,  prefer  to  act  the  patriot's 
part,  for  the  priest  is  every  bit  a  good  Frenchman. 
Be  the  priest  a  simple  soldier  in  the  trenches,  with 
battery,  commissariat,  ammunition,  or  brancardiers,  he 
is  nevertheless  still  a  priest,  and  is  at  all  times  ready 
and  eager  to  exercise  his  priestly  duties.  He  has 
proved  himself  time  and  time  again  to  be  a  cool,  intrepid, 
and  reliable  soldier,  and  he  has  also  proved  himself 
in  the  hour  of  trial  a  comfort  and  spiritual  help  to  those 
about  to  die.  One  has  heard  of  hundreds  of  instances 
in  this  war  when  the  priest,  serving  as  soldier  in  the 
ranks,  has  conducted  Mass  in  some  broken-down 
cottage  or  barn  in  the  firing  zone,  buried  his  dead 
comrades  with  the  rites  of  the  Church,  and  carried 
out  the  last  offices  to  the  dying.  One  of  the  ablest  of 
the  French  artillery  officers,  now  in  charge  of  a  battery, 
is  a  priest,  and  in  times  of  peace  is  a  well-known  Abbe 
and  writer  on  theology.  Another  learned  Abbe  and 
a  great  preacher  was  mobilised  in  July,  and  was  badly 
wounded  at  Charleroi.  When  lying  stricken  on  the 
ground  he  heard  a  mortally  wounded  soldier  calling 
him.  The  Abbe  painfully  crawled  to  the  dying  soldier 
and  administered  the  last  office,  and  while  doing  so 
was  again  wounded.  He  was  later  on  conveyed  by 
hospital  train  to  Paris.  President  Poincare  had  heard 
the  story,  and  met  the  train  on  its  arrival  in  Paris.     He 


WE  LEAVE  BETHUNE  229 

went  into  the  carriage  where  lay  the  badly  wcjimded 
and  apparently  dying  Abbe,  and  decorated  him  with  the 
Legion  d'Honneur.  I  am  glad  to  say  that  the  Abbe, 
although  now  a  cripple,  recovered  from  his  wounds. 

The  Aumonier  to  the  French  Hospital  at  Bethune 
was  a  very  fine  priest.  He  was  not  mobilised  as  a 
soldier  owing  to  defective  vision,  but  he  acted  as  priest 
and  as  a  stretcher-bearer  to  the  hospital.  His  life- 
long friend,  another  priest  and  lecturer  on  Natural 
History  at  the  College  at  Bethune,  was  fighting  as  a 
private  in  the  Argonne.  One  day  the  Abbe  told  me 
that  he  had  received  a  letter  from  his  friend  describing 
his  life  in  the  trenches,  saying,  *'  I  live  the  life  of  a 
rabbit.  I  live  in  a  hole  in  the  ground.  At  night  I 
come  out  to  feed." 

A  few  days  after  this  the  Abbe  heard  that  his  friend 
was  killed — shot  dead  through  the  head.  When  the 
Abbe  told  me  of  this  I  murmured  the  usual,  "  Hard 
luck." 

**  No,"  said  the  Abbe,  becoming  very  serious.  *'  It 
is  not  what  you  call  the  Hard  Luck.  It  is  the  good 
luck.     It  is  how  a  good  priest  would  wish  to  die." 

It  has  been  asked  many  times  during  this  war, 
"  What  is  Christianity  doing  after  the  past  1900  years  ?" 
and  many  have  answered,  "  Crucified  men  and  women. 
Mutilitated  prisoners  of  war.  Outraged  women  and 
slaughtered  children.  Cities  and  towns  in  ashes. 
Misery,  tears,  and  the  moaning  of  millions."  If  this  is 
the  indictment,  it  is  not  against  Christianity,  but 
against  one  people  only,  that  of  Lutheran  Germany. 


230  A  SURGEON  IN  KHAKI 

But  these  hellish  deeds  of  "  Christian  "  Germany  have 
but  served  to  bring  more  clearly  and  brightly  into  view 
the  Christian  spirit  of  other  peoples'  brotherliness, 
help  for  the  distressed,  and  that 

"  Kindness  in  another's  trouble, 
Courage  in  your  own." 

The  Belgian  and  French  soldiers  fighting  at  first  to 
defend  their  homes,  their  women,  and  their  children 
and  old  men,  and  fighting  now  for  vengeance  to  punish 
the  bloody  invaders,  are  examples  of  a  good,  healthy 
Christianity. 

The  open,  warm  welcome  of  France  and  England 
to  the  Belgian  refugees,  the  colossal  funds  for  the 
alleviation  of  distress,  and  helping  of  the  wounded  and 
the  sick,  show  that  the  "  greatest  of  these,''  Charity,  is 
not  yet  dead  on  the  earth. 

Our  definition  of  *'  Christianity  "  depends  upon  the 
point  of  view.  To  me  the  Turco  and  the  Gurkha  are 
very  good  Christians  and  the  German  nation  is  infidel. 
Every  General  Order  issued  by  the  Kaiser  ends  not  with 
an  appeal  to  the  Almighty,  but  with  an  affirmation 
that  God  is  fighting  for  the  German  cause. 

The  Saxons  and  Bavarians  will  sack  a  town  and 
inflict  nameless  horrors  on  helpless  civilians,  shoot  old 
men  for  sport,  kill  children,  torture  women,  commit 
sacrilege  in  the  churches,  smash  altars  and  relics, 
destroy  historic  and  beautiful  windows  and  treasures 
of  art,  bayonet  priests,  violate  shrieking  nuns,  and 
with  hands  smeared  in  blood  they  will  at  the  word  of 
command  praise  their  German  God. 


CHAPTER   XVIII. 
OVEK  THE  BELGIAN  FRONTIER. 

Our  Clearing  Hospital  remained  at  Chocques  for  four 
or  five  days,  and  while  here  had  a  fair,  but  not  a  large, 
number  of  wounded.  These  were  quickly  sent  off  by 
hospital  trains,  which  pulled  on  to  a  siding  not  far  from 
us.  The  Indian  Clearing  Hospital  was  now  also  estab- 
lishing itself  in  the  small  town,  and  the  Indian  hospital 
assistants  were  a  source  of  great  and  wondering  curiosity 
to  the  small  boys  and  girls.  Our  Clearing  Hospital 
was  now  ordered  to  a  place  farther  north,  and  as  I 
had  only  been  temporarily  attached  to  it  during  a 
time  of  great  rush  at  Bethune,  my  place  was  now  w^ith 
my  own  Field  Ambulance  at  the  front,  and  some- 
where near  the  Belgian  frontier. 

A  motor-car  going  to  Hazebrouck  gave  me  a  lift 
as  far  as  there,  and  another  driver  brought  me  to 
Bailleul.  Here,  after  I  had  reported  my  arrival, 
Surgeon- General  Porter  informed  me  of  the  exact 
location  of  my  ambulance. 

Bailleul  is  a  town  of  considerable  importance  in 
the  north  of  France,  and  has  been  the  object  of  many 
visits  from  Taubes,  a  sure  indication  that  there  must 
be  a  church   or  a   hospital  in   Bailleul.      The  church 


232  A  SURGEON  IN  KHAKI 

and  the  hospital  were  very  close   together,   and  the 
Taubes  made  many  a  gallant  attempt  to  get  them  both. 
One  evening  one  of  them  got  the  hospital — a  bomb  fell 
fair  on  the  roof  and  into  a  ward  full  of  wounded  men, 
killing  two  and  wounding  again  a  man  already  grievously 
wounded.     The  old  church  has  so  far  escaped.     The 
square  at  Bailleul  near  the  church  was  a  busy  place  in 
those  days,  as  the  town  was  a  Divisional  Headquarters 
and  a  corps  "  poste  commandement,"  and  where  there 
are  headquarters  and  "  brass  hats  "  there  also  are  many 
rank  and  file.      It  was   here  that,  some  weeks  later, 
I  saw  that  fine  battalion,  the  Liverpool  Scottish,  parade 
in  the  street  and  march  out  to  the  trenches.     They 
were  standing  on  parade  in  the  street  for  about  twenty 
minutes  before  moving  ofi  and  the  day  was  bitterly 
cold.     The  bare  knees  of  the  men  looked  blue  and  the 
kilt  did  not  impress  us  as  a  good  winter  dress.    Why 
Highlanders  choose  to  expose  their  knees  is  quite  beyond 
me.     The  knee  joint  is  a  big  and  complex  anatomical 
structure,  and  is  easily  affected  by  sudden  changes  of 
temperature,  so  why  cover  up  every  other  joint  in  the 
body  and  leave  this  bare  ? 

Greatly  daring  though  the  ladies  are  to-day  in 
their  draping  arrangements,  they  do  not  dare  to  walk 
about  with  bare  knees.  What  prevents  them  must 
certainly  be  their  appreciation  of  the  delicacy  of 
this  joint — the  delicate  mechanism  of  an  important 
articulation. 

Twenty  years  hence,  veterans  of  the  Liverpool 
Scottish  will  tell  their  children  how  they  got  rheumatism 


OVER  THE  BELGIAN  FRONTIER         233 

in  their  knee  joints  from  (he  cold  mud  of  the  Flanders 
trenches  in  the  year  of  our  Lord  1914. 

I  left  Bailleul  on  a  Red-Cross  Wolseley  car  driven 
by  a  queer  character  who  used  to  be  with  us  on  the 
Aisne  doing  transport  work.  He  was  thought  to  have 
been  killed  and  duly  buried,  and  I  was  therefore  agree- 
ably surprised  to  see  my  odd  friend  again.  He  was  a 
wonderfully  cheery  pessimist.  He  usually  had  a  long 
budget  of  most  depressing  news,  of  disasters  by  flood 
and  field,  and  great  disappointments,  but  he  envisaged 
them  all  with  a  rosy  hue  and  predicted  a  great  to- 
morrow. He  did  not  like  the  war,  for  although  it  had 
not  changed  his  occupation — that  of  a  chauffeur — it 
had  seriously  affected  his  emoluments.  In  the  piping 
times  of  peace  he  would  take  small  parties  on  touring 
journeys  in  France,  Germany,  and  Switzerland — some- 
times a  honeymoon  couple,  sometimes  an  American 
millionaire,  and  he  did  exceedingly  well  in  tips. 

We  had  a  rough  passage  up  from  Bailleul  and  were 
twice  bogged  in  the  mud  beside  the  road,  and  had  twice 
to  be  hauled  out.  The  roads  here,  and  right  over  the 
frontier  into  southern  Belgium,  were  very  bad  in  these 
days.  Our  men,  when  on  the  Aisne,  said  many  hard 
words  about  the  mud  there,  but  the  Aisne  was  an 
asphalt  path  compared  with  Belgium. 

However,  we  slowly  squelched  and  skidded  our 
way  over  the  Belgian  frontier  and  reached  Ouderdom, 
not  very  far  from  Ypres.  For  the  last  few  miles  we 
had  been  following  Napoleon's  maxim  to  his  Marshals : 
*'  Marching  on  the  sound  of  the  guns."    The  heavy 


234  A  SURGEON  IN  KHAKI 

artillery,  French,  British,  and  German,  was  making  a 
deafening  roar. 

This  really  completed  the  journey  from  the  Aisne 
to  Flanders.  We  were  at  our  "  farthest  north,"  and 
this  journey  impressed  one  with  the  length  of  the 
huge  battle-line,  although  it  only  embraced,  after  all, 
a  part  of  the  great  whole.  From  Switzerland  to  the 
Channel  stretched  a  wavy  line  of  trenches,  across  plains, 
spanning  canals,  through  and  around  swamps,  in  front 
of  great  cities  and  small  villages,  traversing  great  forests 
and  over  mountain  passes  and  peaks.  At  one  end 
submerged  country  flooded  by  Alpine  snow,  sand  dunes 
at  the  other  ;  and  in  these  trenches  lined  with  soldiers, 
and  swept  by  artillery,  stern  fighting  was  going  on  over 
practically  every  mile. 

Our  ambulance  headquarters  was  about  the  most 
God-forsaken  place  that  one  could  possibly  imagine. 
The  first  impression  one  received  was  a  dirty  pond,  full 
of  fetid  water  and  surrounded  by  heaped-up  straw 
manure.  The  Belgian,  like  the  Frenchman,  loves  to 
have  a  manure  heap  at  his  front  door.  Closely  abutting 
on  this  putrefactive  manure  was  the  cottage  itself, 
with  one  front  room,  a  small  side-room  or  box  off  this 
front  room,  a  kitchen,  a  bedroom,  and  another  box  at 
the  back.  From  the  kitchen  a  rickety  stair  led  up  to 
a  windy  loft  full  of  corn  and  hops  and  bags  of  potatoes. 

Next  the  living  quarters  and  part  of  the  house  came 
stalls  for  cattle,  and  the  tout  ensemble  was  unlovely 
and  smelly.  Twelve  medical  officers,  two  chaplains, 
and  a  quartermaster  lived  in  the  tiny  little  front  room, 


OVER  THE  BELGIAN  FRONTIER         235 

or  crowded  round  a  table  in  it.  When  the  table  was  in 
the  room  there  was  barely  space  to  pass  between  it  and 
the  wall.  Six  or  seven  officers  slept  on  the  floor  of  this 
den  at  night,  and  in  the  morning  had  to  rise  early,  roll 
up  their  valises  and  pack  them  round  the  wall.  The 
O.C.  and  a  chaplain  slept  in  the  box  off  our  only  room, 
and  the  rest  of  us  slept  in  the  loft  amidst  the  wheat 
and  hops  and  the  bitter  cold  draughts. 

Our  cooks  lived,  smoked,  worked,  and  slept  in  the 
kitchen,  and  this  apartment  Madame  invaded  during 
the  day  to  do  her  domestic  cooking.  Madame  "  with 
the  terrible  voice  "  gave  our  cooks  a  bad  time,  and 
frequently  chased  them  out  and  took  their  pots  and  pans 
off  the  fire,  utterly  disorganising  our  meals. 

Madame  was  not  popular,  and  in  my  dreams  I  some- 
times still  hear  her  raucous  voice. 

The  Flemish  farmer,  the  proud  owner  of  this  very 

dirty  and  uninviting  farm,  had  a  family  of  three  little 

children,  and  was  besides  the  humble  husband  of  the 

lady  whose  s^oice  was  more  terrifying  than  the  screech 

of  bursting  shrapnel. 

Poor  Madame,  she  did  not  look  kindly  on  us,  and  we 

never  even  saw  her  smile — except  once,  and  that  story 

comes  later. 

At   4  a.m.   her  strident,  penetrating  tones   would 

fill  the  cottage  and  wake  us  all  to  a  world  of  cold  and 

discomfort,  of  greasy  bacon,  muddy  tea,  and  sodden 

mousy  bread. 

She  was  watchful  and  suspicious  of  our  men,  who 

slept  with  the  poultry  in  the  surrounding  stables  and 


^3G  A  SURGEON  IN  KHAKI 

out-houses,  and  openly  accused  them  of  stealing  her 
straw. 

What  they  could  do  with  the  straw  after  having 
stolen  it  Madame  did  not  choose  to  say — perhaps  she 
thought  that  they  ate  it ! 

We  met  many  Flemish  besides  Madame  and  her 
family  at  this  time,  and  although  we  sympathised 
greatly  with  them,  we  could  not  bring  ourselves  to  like 
them.  It  was  all  so  different  with  the  French,  whom  we 
liked  and  who  liked  us.  The  Flemings  did  not  seem  to 
care  for  us  ;  they  certainly  never  made  us  any  demonstra- 
tions of  affection.  Perhaps  it  was  the  difference  in 
tongue.  They  spoke  French  with  an  Irish-Dutch 
brogue,  and  our  accent  was,  of  course,  a  pure  Anglo- 
Parisian. 

French  officers  told  us  here  that  they  did  not  like  the 
Flemings,  and  that  the  Flemings  were  not  cordial  with 
them.  Belgian  officers,  it  is  well  known,  do  not  see 
eye  to  eye  with  the  French  officers,  but  pull  amazingly 
well  with  the  British,  to  whom  they  are  warm  and  com- 
municative. 

Tommy  Atkins  as  a  rule  likes  every  one,  but  he  neither 
understood  nor  cared  for  the  Flemings.  This  was  quite 
noticeable.  We  found  those  round  Ouderdom,  Ypres, 
and  Dickebusch  sullen,  dour,  and  suspicious.  We  were 
not  welcomed,  and  their  surly,  heavy  manner  towards 
us  was  very  apparent.  There  was  no  responsiveness,  no 
gaiete  de  cceur,  no  cheerfulness. 

Historical  traditions  and  the  likes  and  hates  of 
centuries  die  hard.     The  Flemings  and  the  English  had 


OVER  THE  BELGIAN  FRONTIER         237 

often  been  friends  in  the  past,  but  the  French  and  Flem- 
ings had  always  been  on  opposite  sides  of  the  fence,  and 
whenever  the  French  came  into  the  Flemish  garden  it 
was  to  fight,  and  not  to  play. 

We  wondered  if  Madame  of  our  cottage  knew  her 
Belgian  history.  We  were  quite  sure  that  she  would 
have  been  more  amiable  and  sweet  had  she  known  that 
Flanders  had  been  England's  ally  in  the  Hundi'ed  Years* 
War,  and  that  the  bowmen  of  Mons  were  more  than 
once  ranged  on  England's  side ;  that  Baldwin  ii., 
Count  of  Flanders,  a  former  ruler  of  the  land  where 
stood  Madame's  farm,  was  a  son-in-law  of  Alfred  the 
Great  of  England,  and  that  Baldwin  v.,  also  a  Count  of 
Flanders,  was  father-in-law  to  William  the  Conqueror, 
and  fitted  out  Flemish  ships  to  convey  Flemish  men 
to  Pevensey  to  kill  Harold's  Anglo-Saxons. 

The  Flemings  have  long  memories  about  the  French, 
and  never  forget  the  "  Battle  of  the  Spurs  "  or  the 
"  Battle  of  Roosebeke,"  for  in  these  two  epoch-making 
battles  the  French  were  the  enemy. 

The  manifesto  issued  by  the  King  of  the  Belgians 
to  his  people  at  the  beginning  of  the  war  in  August  cited 
the  Battle  of  the  Spurs  fought  at  Courtrai.  At  this 
famous  encounter,  a  band  of  Flemish  artisans  and 
citizens,  armed  with  billhooks,  axes,  and  scythes,  attacked 
with  the  maddest  fury  a  disciplined  French  army  of 
steel-clad  knights  and  men-at-arms  and  utterly  defeated 
it.  This  battle  reference  was  hardly  quite  happy  when 
Joih'e  was  hurrying  his  Army  Corps  over  the  frontier 
to  Namur. 


238  A  SUEGEON  IN  KHAKI 

At  Roosebeke,  in  1382,  the  French  met  another 
citizen  army  under  Philip  van  Artevelde,  and  slew  him 
and  twenty-five  thousand  men.  It  is  said  that  Flemish 
fathers  and  mothers  handed  down  this  bitter  tale  to  their 
children  for  three  centuries,  and  in  later  years  told  of 
Cassel,  Ramillies,  Oudenarde,  Malplaquet,  Jemappes, 
and  Waterloo — all  glaring  instances  of  French  turbulence 
on  peaceful  Flanders  land.  So  the  Flemings  were  dis- 
trustful always  of  the  Gallic  cock,  and  had  apparently 
forgotten  about  their  connection  with  our  Alfred  the 
Great  and  our  William  of  Normandy. 

During  our  occupation  of  this  mean  farmhouse, 
situated  behind  its  Flemish  manure  heap,  the  weather 
was  bitingly  cold.  The  rain  of  the  first  week  was 
succeeded  by  a  heav}^  snow  and  frost,  and  as  we  had  no 
fire  of  any  sort  and  were  not  able  to  take  much  physical 
exercise,  we  were  all  day  and  night  chilled  to  our  very 
marrow. 

November  1914  in  Flanders  will  be  remembered 
by  many  thousands  of  Englishmen  as  a  month  of  intense 
and  bitter  cold,  when  to  the  dangers  and  ever-present 
death  of  the  trenches  were  added  the  miseries  and 
tortures  of  frostbitten  feet  and  legs,  and  a  merciless 
cutting  wind.  This  was  the  period  when  men,  stiffened 
and  paralysed  with  cold,  had  to  be  pulled  out  of  the 
trenches  and  dragged  or  carried  to  the  rear  to  bring 
back  a  slowing  circulation  to  the  affected  limbs.  This 
was  also  the  period  when  men  could  not  be  spared 
from  the  firing  line,  when  the  Germans  were  making 
those  formidable  rushes  in  strong  columns,  and  leaving 


OVER  THE  BELGIAN  FRONTIER         239 

thousands  of  dead  to  mark  the  place  where  the  rush 
had  been  stayed  and  the  column  crumpled  up. 

The  little  town  of  Dickebusch  was  on  the  road  to  our 
left,  and  through  it  ran  a  highway  to  Ypres.  Where 
the  road  turned  to  the  right  into  Ypres  was  an  advanced 
station  of  a  Field  Ambulance,  and,  as  one  of  the  medical 
officers  of  it  was  known  to  me,  I  walked  along  this 
highway  one  morning  in  order  to  hear  the  latest  news. 
He  was  always  a  very  safe  man  to  call  upon  for  news, 
for  what  he  did  not  know  authentically,  he  would 
invent.  The  road  to  this  advanced  station  lay  behind 
several  batteries  of  French  "  seventy-fives,"  the  pride 
and  glory  of  the  French  gunner.  The  road  was  quite 
close  to  these  guns,  but  they  were  so  wonderfully 
concealed  with  straw  and  branches  of  trees  that  an 
ordinary  traveller  would  have  passed  them  by  until 
their  presence  was  indicated  by  their  mighty  roar. 
The  gunners  were  hard  at  it  this  morning,  pouring  an 
unending  string  of  bursting  shells  on  the  German 
positions,  and  the  din  was  terrible. 

Suddenly  the  Germans  got  the  range  of  the  road. 
One  shell  burst  far  in  front  of  me  on  the  road,  and  one 
far  behind  about  the  same  moment,  and  a  bolt  for  cover 
was  the  immediate  sequence.  I  got  into  a  dug-out 
behind  some  French  guns  and  then  witnessed  a  wonder- 
ful display  of  artillery  practice.  Shell  after  shell  fell 
with  marvellous  precision  up  and  down  the  road,  and 
one  followed  the  other  with  a  lightning  speed.  The 
road  was  excavated  with  volcanic  craters,  of  flying  stones 
and  earth  clouds,  and  mighty  showers  of  debris  were 


240  A  SURGEON  IN  KHAKI 

sprayed  tiimultuously  on  every  side.  A  French  officer 
pointed  out  where  the  next  shell  would  land ;  and  he 
was  always  right — he  knew  the  "  general  idea  "  possess- 
ing the  mind  of  the  German  gunner,  and  correctly 
surmised  that  after  the  road  had  been  systematically 
covered,  the  firing  would  cease.  It  was  a  big  waste 
of  ammunition,  for  nothing  was  damaged  except  the 
road,  and  the  French  gunners,  as  soon  as  the  firing  was 
over,  ran  to  their  pet  "  seventy-fives  ''  and  opened 
furiously  back  in  order  to  show  that  their  bark  was  as 
good  as  ever.  The  French  batteries  at  this  particular 
place  did  enormous  damage  to  the  Germans  in  their 
attacks  south  of  Ypres,  and  as  they  are  no  longer  at 
this  roadside  but  somewhere  farther  on,  no  valuable 
information  is  being  given  away  in  relating  the  fact. 

The  French  gunners,  both  at  this  critical  phase  of 
the  war  and  on  the  Aisne,  were  wonderful  fellows. 
Night  and  day,  in  rain,  hail,  sleet,  or  snow,  their  great 
guns  never  stopped.  In  the  blackest  night  and  in 
howling  gales  of  sleety  wind  they  could  be  heard  near 
by  and  in  the  far  distance,  for  ever  pounding  into  the 
enemy.  This  policy  of  continuous  fire  is  wonderfully 
heartening  to  the  French  troops  in  the  trenches,  and 
the  moral  effect  is  tremendous.  On  the  Aisne  the 
French  guns  were  always  busy,  but  the  British,  alas, 
were  generally  silent.  I  have  heard  men  on  the  Aisne 
pathetically  say,  ''  Why  don't  our  guns  fixe  V  "  Why 
don't  they  reply  to  the  German  fire  ?  "  and  the  question- 
ing was  not  confined  to  soldiers,  for  it  was  a  common 
topic  of  conversation  amongst  officers.     On  the  Aisne 


OVER  THE  BELGIAN  FRONTIER        241 

we  did  not  have  enough  artillery,  and  we  had  not 
enough  ammunition  for  the  artillery  we  did  have.  It 
was  the  same  at  this  period  at  Ypres.  England,  the 
greatest  engineering  country  of  the  world,  the  richest 
and  most  prosperous  Empire  of  this  or  any  other 
time,  made  a  very  poor  showing  on  the  Continent. 
Small  as  our  army  was,  it  was  not  equipped  perfectly. 
Our  army  in  France  may  have  been  the  "  best  shooting 
army,"  but  if  so  it  was  with  the  rifle.  In  artillery  we 
were  entirely  outclassed  by  the  Germans  and  put  to 
eternal  shame  by  the  French.  On  the  Aisne  the 
Germans  had  big  8-inch  howitzers  and  we  had 
nothing  to  meet  them.  Against  the  guns  that  had 
battered  the  forts  of  Maubeuge  and  crumpled  up 
Namur  what  had  we  to  offer  ?  Nothing.  The  Ger- 
mans had  an  unlimited  supply  of  machine-guns  on  the 
Aisne  and  the  Yser,  and  we  had  a  paltry  few.  We 
were  short  of  ammunition,  but  the  Germans  and  the 
French  had  plenty. 

When  we  required  high  explosive  shells  to  beat 
down  entrenchments  and  trenches  we  had  nothing  but 
shrapnel,  which  was  absolutely  useless  for  this  purpose. 
Because  shrapnel  was  effective  in  the  South  African 
War  and  high  explosives  unnecessary  there,  it  was 
concluded  that  the  same  set  of  circumstances  would 
be  repeated  in  France  and  Belgium. 

In  September  1914  I  saw  the  four  6-inch  howitzer 

batteries  arrive  on  the  Aisne  from  England,  and  the 

news  of  their  arrival  spread  like  wildfire  amongst  our 

men,  who  thought  that  at  last  "  mighty  England  was 
i6 


242  A  SUBGEON  IN  KHAKI 

sending  mighty  guns/'  They  were  mighty  guns  right 
enough,  but  there  was  not  enough  ammunition  sent 
with  them.  As  a  nation  we  always  muddle  through, 
but  it  is  rather  pitiful  to  think  that  muddles  mean  the 
death  of  many  brave  men,  and  that  our  woeful  lack 
of  big  guns  and  ammunition  has  meant  many  British 
graves  in  France  and  Flanders. 

A  ride  through  Ypres  at  this  time  was  an  interesting 
and  exciting  affair  —  interesting  from  the  historic 
associations  of  the  old  Flemish  capital,  and  exciting 
from  the  German  "  Black  Marias  ''  falling  about.  The 
old  Cloth  Hall  was  then  still  standing — only  one  corner 
and  a  door  had  been  battered  about,  but  Ypres  itself 
was  very  mournful  and  desolate.  A  bombarded  town, 
empty  of  all  its  people  and  with  ruins  all  round  where 
once  was  industry,  wealth,  and  moving  crowds,  presents 
a  very  sad  spectacle.  I  suppose  Ypres,  stormy  as 
her  history  has  been  in  the  past,  had  never  been  so 
empty  before.  At  one  time  200,000  people  were  said 
to  have  lived  in  Ypres.  That  was  in  the  days  of  her 
splendour  as  the  ancient  capital  of  Flanders,  when 
the  wonderful  Cloth  Hall  was  built  by  the  cloth- 
workers  of  the  thirteenth  century,  in  that  turbulent 
epoch  when  citizens  and  workpeople  were  fighting 
down  and  curbing  the  old  feudal  tjranny — for  it  was 
in  Belgium  that  the  common  people  established  the 
first  free  city  north  of  the  Alps. 

On  the  ride  through  this  famous  old  city  to  our 
positions  beyond,  the  terrible  evidences  of  the  German 
bombardment    surrounded    one    in    monumental    im- 


OVEE  THE  BELGIAN  FRONTIER         243 

pressiveness.  Dead  horses  were  lying  in  coagulated 
pools  of  blood  in  every  street.  Whole  rows  of  old, 
closely-built  Spanish  and  Flemish  houses  and  shops 
were  crumbled  and  shattered.  The  pave  was  ripped, 
torn,  and  covered  with  window  glass  shattered  into 
millions  of  fine  fragments ;  roofs  had  disappeared  from 
some  houses,  and  walls  blown  out  of  others.  Tumbled 
masonry,  smoking  ashes,  and  excavated,  torn-up  road- 
ways— all  bore  witness  to  the  terrible  character  of  the 
first  German  bombardment. 

In  one  tobacconist's  shop  in  the  square,  just 
opposite  the  Cloth  Hall,  the  large  plate-glass  window  had 
been  completely  destroyed,  but  the  shop  stood  other- 
wise uninjured  and  intact.  One  could  easily  have 
taken  boxes  of  cigars  and  pipes  by  simply  putting  a 
hand  through  the  window-frame  in  passing,  but  although 
the  temptation  was  there,  not  one  cigar  was  touched 
by  a  British  soldier.  Imagine  the  genial  Saxon  or  the 
crucifying  Bavarian  letting  such  a  chance  slip  ! 

I  got  off  my  horse  and  led  it  through  the  street,  as 
it  clearly  did  not  like  passing  the  dead  horses  on  the 
roadway.  After  having  tied  it  to  a  street-post  in  front 
of  a  fair-sized  hotel  or  estaminet,  I  walked  into  the 
front  bar-parlour,  which  was  open  to  the  street.  The 
evidences  of  a  hasty  exit  were  ludicrously  patent.  A 
half-emptied  glass  of  beer  and  a  full  one  stood  close 
together  on  the  bar  counter,  and  near  them  lay  a  good 
pipe  full  of  tobacco  which  had  not  been  lighted.  On 
a  small  table  in  a  corner  of  the  cafe  was  a  tray  with 
two  large  empty  clean  glasses ;  on  the  same  table  stood 


244  A  SURGEON  IN  KHAKI 

a  bottle  of  red  wine,  and  close  beside  it  a  corkscrew, 
holding  the  impaled  extracted  cork.     One  light  chair 
near  this  table  lay  overturned  on  the  floor ;  the  other 
had  been  hastily  drawn  back,  as  was  shown  by  the 
tracks  on   the   sawdust  floor.     I  thought  of  Pompeii 
when  old  Vesuvius  belched  ashes  and  molten  lava  and 
buried  the  gay  Roman  pleasure-city  as  it  stood.     The 
Pompeian  wine-bibbers  and  "  mine  host ""  could  not 
escape  from  that  engulfing  darkness  and  the  fiery  cinders, 
and    perforce   died    nobly  standing    by  their   bottles. 
But  in  that  drinking-room  at  Ypres  there  was  no  dying 
the  death    beside   the    beer   and   the  good  red  wine. 
No  Sherlock  Holmes  was  necessary  to  reconstruct  the 
picture — ^the  two  cronies   drinking  their  morning  ale 
at  the  bar,  and  the  two  comfortable  Yprian  burghers 
waiting  for  the  filling  of  their  glasses  from  the  bottle 
ju.st  uncorked,  the  burly  *'  mine  host '"  in  white  apron 
and  with  bottle  in  hand — all  suddenly  electrified  by  a 
sinister  whistling  overhead,  and  then  the  mighty  explo- 
sion,  the   roar   of   falling   masonry,   the   smashing  of 
hundreds  of  window-panes,  the  concussion  of  air ;  then 
another  earthquake  smash,  and  then  another,  till  the 
house  and  street  were  rocking  with  the  shocks.     This 
was  no  time  to  light  a  pipe,  to  drink  amber  beer  and 
ruddy  wine.     It  was  time  to  get  out  of  Ypres.     So 
down  went  the  forgotten  pipe  and  bottle,  back  went 
the  chairs,  and  out  streamed  our  terrified  quintet  to 
the  tormented  street,  leaving  the  room  and  its  contents 
as  I  saw  it. 

On  approaching  the  bridge  on  the  far  side  of  the 


OVER  THE  BELGIAN  FRONTIER         245 

town  I  saw  the  only  remaining  inhabitant.  This  was 
a  middle-aged  woman  with  a  grey  shawl  over  her  head 
and  shoulders,  and  she  was  looking  out  of  a  window 
of  a  partly  shattered  house.  I  felt  sorry  for  her,  she 
looked  so  very  lonely  in  that  broken  house. 

That  afternoon  she  was  arrested  by  the  Belgians 
as  a  spy.  My  compassion  had  been  utterly  thrown 
away. 

Near  this  same  bridge  on  another  occasion  my 
arrival  was  providential.  An  Army  Service  Corps  driver 
was  speeding  his  motor  towards  the  city  when  he  was 
struck  by  enemy  shrapnel.  He  had  just  sufficient 
strength  to  stop  his  lorry  before  fainting  from  the 
shock  and  the  rush  of  blood  from  a  grievous  wound  of 
the  right  thigh.  Blood  was  pumping  out  of  the  wound, 
and  it  appeared  as  if  the  femoral  artery  had  been  torn. 
Fortunately  it  was  not,  and  we  were  soon  able  to  control 
the  haBmorrhage,  put  the  wounded  man  on  his  lorry, 
and  drive  him  back  to  one  of  the  ambulance  stations  in 
a  cottage  near  the  roadside. 

The  road  from  Ypres  to  our  trenches  was  a  busy 
but  pathetic  highway — busy  with  marching  men, 
waggons,  gallopers,  generals,  and  staf!  officers,  and 
pathetic  from  the  many  graves  and  small  graveyards 
near  the  roadside  and  the  many  full  ambulance  waggons 
rumbling  along  on  the  uneven,  jolty  jpave. 

The  road  was  frequently  visited  with  enemy  shells, 
and  no  one  travelled  along  it  unless  on  business.  "  Tres- 
passers  will  be  prosecuted  "  was  an  unnecessary  injunc- 
tion on  the  Ypres  roads. 


246  A  SURGEON  IN  KHAKI 

The  headquarter  staf!  of  the  15th  Brigade  beyond 
Ypres  had  a  narrow^  escape  one  morning.  A  big  shell 
burst  in  the  grounds  of  the  chateau  occupied  by  the 
Brigadier  and  his  staff.  The  staff,  who  were  in  the 
building  at  the  time,  went  out  to  look  at  the  hole  it 
had  made.  Whilst  looking  at  the  pit,  another  shell 
landed  on  the  chateau  itself  and  burst  into  the  room 
just  vacated  by  them.  A  soldier  servant  was  killed  and 
one  staff  officer  was  wounded. 

An  advanced  ambulance  station,  with  wounded  men 
and  medical  officers  in  it,  was  struck  fairly  by  another 
shell  and  badly  holed,  causing  loss  of  life.  No  place 
was  safe  from  these  long  bowls  of  the  enemy,  and 
though  artillery  practice  of  this  sort  may  not  be  of 
much  military  importance,  it  yet  produces  an  air  of 
uncertainty  and  caution  and  jumpiness. 

The  country  surrounding  Ypres  and  Ypres  itself 
were  very  dismal.  The  old  elm  trees  on  the  roads,  and 
the  silent,  deserted  streets  were  shrouded  in  a  ghostly 
veil  of  melancholy. 

On  a  subsequent  visit  to  the  site  of  the  old  Cloth  Hall 
one  saw  little  more  than  ruins,  for  the  famous  building 
had  in  the  interval  been  correctly  ranged  by  the  enemy 
guns  and  duly  shattered.  Later  on  more  destruction 
took  place,  and  visitors  of  the  year  2015  will  be  shown 
some  stones  and  broken  pillars,  all  that  was  left  of  a 
famous  hall  which  had  stood  for  seven  centuries  and 
had  been  destroyed  "  one  hundred  years  ago.'* 

When  peace  comes  again  to  Belgium,  Ypres  and 
its  roads,  its  Hill  60  and  its  graves  will  be  a  place  of 


OVER  THE  BELGIAN  FRONTIER         247 

holy  pilgrimage  to  thousands  of  English,  French,  and 
Germans,  for  here  fell  and  are  buried  their  bravest 
dead. 

But  the  curious  tripper  and  the  Cook's  tourist  had 
better  keep  away  from  Ypres.  Let  the  friends  of  the 
dead  and  the  quiet  country  folk  have  the  land  in  their 
possession  for  a  season. 

The  railway  station  at  Vlamertinge,  near  Ypres, 
frequently  had  a  very  fine  armoured  train  in  its  sidings. 
The  train  was  manned  by  Jack  Tars  with  naval  guns, 
and  the  engine  and  car  looked  very  attractive  in  a 
wonderful  coat  of  futurist  colours — splashes  of  green 
and  khaki  and  brown.  This  H.M.S  Chameleon  was  a 
very  good  cruiser  and  very  nippy  in  moving  across 
country.  The  sailors  were  very  cheerful  and  seemed 
to  like  their  ship  amazingly. 

On  the  roads  near  our  headquarters  running  from 
Renninghelst  to  Vlamertinge,  and  hence  along  the  main 
highway  to  Ypres,  a  large  number  of  Belgian  soldiers 
were  at  work  repairing  the  pave  and  widening  the  road 
surface  by  laying  prepared  trunks  of  trees  laid  closely 
together  in  the  mud  at  the  sides.  They  were 
fine  sturdy  men  and  full  of  life  and  cheerfulness,  a 
different  type  altogether  from  the  countryfolk  we  met 
in  the  farms.  These  were  the  men  who  had  fought 
from  Liege  to  the  Yser,  and  were  still  on  Belgian  soil. 
They  were  very  bitter  about  the  Germans.  They  said 
that  they  asked  for  no  quarter  and  would  give  none  in 
the  fighting. 

These   Belgians   on   the   roads  were   men  who   had 


248  A  SURGEON  IN  KHAKI 

been  temporarily  sent  back  to  "  recuperate,"  and  while 
at  this  work  they  enjoyed  good  food,  warm  quarters, 
and  sleep.  At  eleven  o'clock  every  morning  a  very  fine 
motor  kitchen  would  pass  along  the  road.  Each  man 
had  his  canteen  ready,  the  cook  ladled  out  to  him 
a  good  helping  of  mashed  potatoes,  boiled  mutton,  and 
thick  gravy,  and  another  cook  handed  him  a  big 
chunk  of  white  bread.  It  was  all  done  very  ex- 
peditiously and  in  good  order.  After  getting  his  share 
each  man  would  sit  on  his  rolled-up  overcoat  on  the 
roadside  and  spoon  the  mutton  and  potatoes  into  his 
mouth  with  the  bread.  Knives  and  forks  and  spoons, 
after  all,  are  really  only  luxuries. 

The  roads  were  in  a  frightful  state  during  these 
November  weeks.  The  narrow  fave  was  full  of  ruts, 
deep  and  dangerous,  and  skirted  on  either  side  by  a 
slope  of  boggy  quagmire  churned  up  by  the  wheels  of 
hundreds  of  heavy  motor  transports,  and  beyond  this 
again  on  either  side  was  a  deep  ditch. 

Any  skidding  motor  would  land  in  the  ditch,  and 
the  righting  of  these  embedded  cars  was  at  times  a 
titanic  task,  productive  of  much  loss  of  temper  and 
bad  language. 

The  narrow  fave  would  not  permit  of  two  vehicles 
crossing  abreast,  and  when  two  met,  neither  wished  to 
surrender  the  "  crown  of  the  causeway.''  It  was  a 
point  of  honour  not  to  budge  and  to  wear  down  the 
other  side  by  abusive  epithets.  Uncle  Toby  used  to 
say  that  our  army  swore  horribly  in  Flanders,  but  the 
swearing  in  Toby's  day  was  not  a  patch  on  the  rich 


OVER  THE  BELGIAN  FRONTIER         249 

vocabulary  and  full-blooded  oaths  of  our  London  taxi- 
drivers  in  Flanders  in  1914. 

The  London  taxi-driver,  always  eloquent,  reached 
his  highest  flights  when  addressing  the  quivering 
blancmange-like  mud  of  a  Belgian  road. 

I  have  seen  old  French  non-commissioned  officers 
who  probably  did  not  know  a  single  word  of  what  was 
said  on  these  occasions,  but  who  envisaged  the  situation 
perfectly,  stand  by  with  approving  and  admiring  faces 
while  the  driver  was  embracing  in  his  comprehensive 
abuse  all  things  living  and  dead,  the  heavens  above, 
the  earth  beneath,  and  the  waters  under  the  earth. 

At  Ouderdom  we  met  Alphonse,  soldier  of  France. 
Two  medical  officers  were  one  morning  sipping  some 
red  wine  in  an  estaminet  in  the  village  when  in  swaggered 
a  very  small  French  soldier. 

He  had  a  boy's  face  and  figure  and  voice,  but  bore 
the  assured  manner  of  a  man  of  the  world.  He  was 
small  even  for  a  French  boy.  A  carbine  was  swung 
across  his  back,  and  his  belt  carried  a  bayonet  and 
cartridges.  He  wore  the  French  blue  overcoat  with 
the  ends  tucked  up  in  the  approved  style  and  with  the 
buttons  polished  and  bright .  His  little  legs  were  encased 
in  the  familiar  red  trousers  tucked  into  heavy  boots 
several  sizes  too  large  for  him,  and  his  M'pi  was  placed 
on  his  small,  closely  cropped  head  at  a  jaunty  angle. 
Such  was  Alphonse,  the  complete  soldier  of  France,  full 
private  in  a  famous  Parisian  rifle  battalion. 

Alphonse  swaggered  into  the  cafe,  ordered  his  glass 
of  red  wine  with  the  sang-froid  and  assurance  of  a 


250  A  SUKGEON  IN  KHAKI 

veteran  grenadier,  and   tossed  it  off   as  easily  as    a 
Falstaff. 

"  How  old  are  you,  Alphonse  ?  "  "  But  fourteen 
years,  mon  officier."  "  Have  you  killed  many  Ger- 
mans ?  "  "  But  yes,  perhaps  thirteen,  perhaps  fifteen  ; 
who  can  tell  when  one  is  fighting  every  day  ?  But 
certainly  I  kill  many  Bosches."  "  And  with  what  did 
you  kill  them,  Alphonse  ?  "  "  Avec  mon  carabine  " — 
this  with  a  smack  of  his  hand  on  the  barrel  of  the  gun. 
A  smart  soldierly  salute,  and  our  gallant  killer  of  thir- 
teen, perhaps  fifteen,  peaceful,  amiable  German  soldiers 
strode  out  of  the  cafe. 

A  corporal  of  Alphonse's  regiment  told  us  that  at 
the  beginning  of  the  war  Alphonse  was  a  young  devil 
of  a  gamin  in  Paris.  In  his  leisure  moments  he  sold 
newspapers  in  the  streets,  and  in  his  working  hours  he 
was  up  to  some  devilry. 

When  this  regiment  marched  out  of  Paris  towards 
the  frontier  Alphonse  marched  alongside  it,  a  bright- 
eyed,  hopeful,  cheerful  youth  clad  in  ragged  clothes  and 
down-at-heel  boots.  He  was  told  to  go  home,  but  said 
that  he  had  no  home  and  was  going  instead  to  kill 
Germans.  So  in  the  good  French  way  the  regiment 
adopted  Alphonse,  gave  him  a  uniform  and  a  gun,  and 
a  new  pair  of  boots,  and  took  him  on  the  strength. 

The  little  gamin  turned  out  a  very  cunning  soldier. 
He  was  a  dead  shot,  and  the  corporal  assured  us 
that  he  had  accounted  for  a  good  many  of  the  enemy. 
At  night  Alphonse  would  crawl  out  of  the  trenches  and 
scout  well  into  the  enemy  lines.     Frequently  he  brought 


OVER  THE  BELGIAN  FRONTIER         251 

back  valuable  information  of  preparations  for  a  German 
surprise  attack.  He  was  so  small  and  so  cute  that  he 
escaped  observation. 

In  December  Alphonse  was  presented  to  President 
Poincare  on  one  of  his  many  visits  to  the  French  front, 
and  the  President  promised  him  a  commission  and  the 
Legion  d'Honneur  when  he  should  reach  the  age  of 
twenty-one  years.  I  have  grave  fears  for  the  gallant, 
snub-nosed,  blue-eyed  Alphonse,  young  in  years  but 
old  in  sin.  He  is  already  too  fond  of  the  rich  red  wine 
of  France,  and  scouting  at  night  inside  the  enemy  lines 
is  a  duty  full  of  peril.  But  Alphonse  can  teach  a 
lesson  in  patriotism  that  many  a  flower-socked,  straw- 
hatted  knut  on  a  London  promenade  would  do  well  to 
learn. 

The  Flemings  are  very  devout  Catholics,  perhaps 
the  most  Catholic  of  all  peoples  to-day;  so  our  am- 
bulance was  given  the  hall-mark  of  respectability 
because  we  had  with  it  a  Monsignor,  The  presence  of 
a  Catholic  prelate  with  our  ambulance,  distinguished 
it  in  a  notable  degree  from  all  other  ambulances,  and 
we  tried  to  live  up  to  our  presumed  reputation. 

Whenever  Monsignor  appeared  on  the  roads  near 
Ouderdom  the  Belgian  soldiers  would  immediately 
stop  work  and,  carrying  their  pickaxes  and  shovels, 
crowd  round  him  for  a  talk  and  the  latest  news.  Mon- 
signor was  a  good  linguist  and  a  cheerful  optimist, 
and  never  handed  on  any  bad  news  to  the  soldiers. 
One  morning  he  was  asked  for  news,  and  appealed  to 
me  what  to  say.     We  told  them  that  the  Russians  had 


252  A  SURGEON  IN  KHAKI 

another  victory,  and  that  the  German  dead  could  be 
counted  by  thousands.  This  was  very  palatable  and 
thoroughly  appreciated.  We  were  not  asked  to  give 
any  details  of  the  victory,  which  was  perhaps  fortunate. 

Monsignor  would  sometimes  walk  along  this  road 
with  his  hands  behind  his  back  and  with  two  or  three 
cigarettes  sticking  out  prominently  from  between  his 
fingers.  The  Belgian  soldiers  would  then  stalk  after 
him,  with  broad  grins  on  their  faces,  and  pull  away  a 
cigarette.  Monsignor  never  looked  behind.  That 
would  not  be  playing  the  game  at  all,  but  his  eyes  would 
twinkle,  and  I  have  no  doubt  whatever  that  he  hugely 
enjoyed  the  fun. 

There  were  days  when  Monsignor  had  a  wardrobe  con- 
sisting of  but  one  shirt  and  one  pair  of  trousers — the 
other  articles  of  apparel  had  all  been  given  away.  Then 
he  would  begin  again  to  collect  mufflers  and  socks  when 
supplies  came  in,  and  hand  them  out  almost  immediately 
to  some  poor  devils  who  had  nothing.  If  our  chaplain 
appeared  any  day  to  be  more  cheerful  than  usual,  one 
could  make  qiiite  sure  that  he  had  just  given  away  his 
boots  or  his  shirt  or  his  towel  to  some  poor  French, 
Belgian,  or  British  Tommy.  The  only  thing  he  kept  a 
tight  hold  on  was  his  toothbrush. 

One  day  Monsignor  appeared  with  a  cardboard  box 
in  his  hand  and  told  us  that  he  was  going  to  Renning- 
helst,  a  small  town  about  two  miles  from  our  head- 
quarters.    Lieutenant  X and  myself  asked  leave 

to  accompany  him.  We  had  to  ask  permission,  for 
Monsignor  was  a  senior  chaplain  and  a  lieutenant- 


OVER  THE  BELGIAN  FRONTIER         253 

colonel  in  rank,  although  he  never  said  anything  about 
that.  We  discovered  it  accidentally.  Being  a  colonel 
interested  him  only  in  a  vague  impersonal  sort  of  way. 
He  told  us  once  that  a  soldier  is  diffident  and  shy  before 
a  colonel,  but  is  natural  and  communicative  to  his 
minister  or  priest  who  is  not  flagged  and  starred. 

On  this  lovely  winter  morning,  when  the  whole 
countryside  was  white  with  frozen  snow,  we  had  a 
sharp  bracing  walk  to  the  curious  old  town,  then  the 

headquarters  of  General  B and  his  staff  of  a  French 

Division.  The  village  streets  were  packed  full  of 
French  and  Belgian  soldiery,  from  Spaliis  to  Alpine 
Chasseurs,  We  worked  our  way  round  the  carts  and 
through  the  jostling  men  to  a  little  shop  opposite  the 
church.  Monsignor  was  hailed  joyfully  by  many  of  his 
old  friends,  who  on  this  particular  morning  were  not 
working  on  the  roads. 

The  mystery  of  the  cardboard  box  was  then  un- 
ravelled, for  after  cutting  the  string  and  throwing  away 
the  cover  we  saw  that  it  was  full  of  small  religious 
medals  and  scapularies.  There  was  a  big  rush  for  the 
medals,  and  we  were  all  squeezed  up  together  by  the 
pressing  soldiers,  hundreds  of  whom  were  holding  their 
grimy  paws  out  for  the  metal  discs.  As  Monsignor  was 
hard  at  work  I  took  a  hand  also  and  helped  in  the 
distribution.  At  last  all  were  gone.  Hundreds  more 
men  had  come  up  with  hands  out,  but  had  to  leave 
unsatisfied.  I  asked  Monsignor  if  the  medals  lost  any 
virtue  by  having  been  handed  out  by  me,  a  Protestant. 
He  assured  me  that  it  was  all  right,  as  the  Belgians 


254  A  SURGEON  IN  KHAKI 

and    French     must    have    thought    I     was    a    good 
Catholic. 

Every  Field  Ambulance  has  two  chaplains  attached 
to  it.  Ours  had  a  Church  of  England  one  and  a  Roman 
Catholic.  Another  ambulance  would  have  perhaps  a 
Wesleyan  and  a  Catholic,  or  a  Presbyterian  and  an 
Anglican.  These  chaplains  were  not  designed  for  the 
spiritual  needs  of  the  ambulance  men,  but  as  each 
ambulance  kept  in  touch  with  a  brigade  consisting  of 
four  battalions,  the  chaplain  could  also,  by  being 
with  the  ambulance  headquarters,  keep  in  touch  with 
the  brigade,  and  could  also  meet  the  wounded  brought 
in  from  that  brigade,  administer  the  rites  of  the  Church 
to  those  requiring  it,  and  bury  the  dead.  The  chaplains 
did  not  restrict  themselves  to  the  men  of  their  own 
faith,  but  helped  and  worked  all  they  knew  for  all. 
After  all,  an  ambulance  station  full  of  wounded  men 
is  not  the  place  for  religious  exercises,  and  a  wise 
chaplain  helped  in  making  the  men  as  comfortable  as 
possible,  bringing  round  soup,  taking  off  boots,  dis- 
tributing cigarettes  and  tobacco,  writing  letters  and 
"  gossiping  '' — the  wounded  like  some  one  to  talk  to 
them  and  to  talk  to,  and  the  chaplains  could  make  a 
"  cheery  atmosphere  ''  even  in  such  a  gloomy  place  as  a 
barn  full  of  recently  wounded  men.  Most  of  the 
chaplains  had  a  good  sense  of  proportion.  Some  had 
not.  One  bleak,  miserable  day,  I  saw  a  well-meaning  but 
mournful  chaplain  go  up  to  a  lorry  full  of  wounded 
men  packed  close  together  on  the  straw,  uncomfortable 
and    shivering   and   miserable.     He    handed    to    each 


OVER  THE  BELGIAN  FRONTIER        255 

of  them  a  small  religious  tract  exhorting  him  to  read  it. 
The  men  took  them  with  a  polite  "  Thank  you, 
sir/'  but  their  faces  displayed  no  enthusiasm.  This 
was  not  the  time  for  tracts.  Shortly  afterwards 
another  chaplain,  a  man  of  the  world,  came  up  to  the 
lorry  with  a  "  Cheer  up,  boys.  You'll  soon  be  in  warm 
comfortable  quarters.  Have  you  any  smokes  ?  "  The 
men  had  none,  and  out  came  a  dozen  packets  of 
Woodbine  cigarettes  from  the  chaplain's  pockets  and 
two  boxes  of  matches.  The  expression  on  the  men's 
faces  altered  at  once.  The  atmosphere  had  altered,  the 
sense  of  proportion  had  been  restored. 

Men  in  hospital  like  to  hear  good  news.  I  knew 
one  chaplain  who  managed  never  to  go  into  a  room  full 
of  wounded  and  sick  men  without  bringing  some  cheery 
report  for  everybody.  He  never  actually  fabricated 
news,  but  he  had  a  wonderful  gift  of  exaggeration. 
If  we  were  in  the  same  position,  we  had  "  held  the  line 
against  incredible  odds."  If  the  French  had  taken  an 
enemy  trench,  "  they  had  driven  a  wedge  into  the 
German  position  and  produced  consternation."  If 
Russian  cavalry  had  made  a  reconnaissance  in  the 
Masurian  Lakes,  "  they  were  sweeping  like  locusts  all 
over  East  Prussia,  and  had  set  fire  to  the  Kaiser's 
favourite  hunting-lodge." 

The  men  never  inquired  about  details,  general 
statements  were  quite  good  enough. 

This  was  better  than  telling  men  that  the  "  war 
would  be  a  terribly  long  one ;  that  we  would  have 
to  make  great  sacrifices  ;  but,  please  God,  we  would  win 


256  A  SURGEON  IN  KHAKI 

in  the  end/'  I  have  heard  a  chaplain  talk  like  this  to 
wounded  men,  and  I  knew  that  he  "  wasn't  delivering 
the  right  goods." 

Renninghelst  is  a  large  village,  or  rather  a  very 
small  town.  It  is  situated  close  to  the  Franco-Belgian 
frontier,  and  at  this  period  was  of  importance  as  an 
ambulance  centre  for  wounded  French  and  Belgians 
who  were  occupying  the  line  of  trenches  in  the  front. 
The  country  all  round  is  real  Flanders  land — flat, 
low-lying,  damp,  and  uninviting.  The  renowned  Mont 
de  Cats  can  be  seen  from  it,  and  round  this  mont 
some  hard  fighting  was  taking  place.  The  old  village 
has  a  queer  Dutch-looking  church  with  a  closely  packed 
graveyard  around  it,  planted  thickly  with  stone  and 
iron  crosses  to  the  memory  of  ancient  departed  bmghers, 
whose  Flemish-Dutch  names  are  inscribed  there  to 
commemorate  their  ages  and  their  virtues.  Eighty, 
eighty-five,  and  ninety  seemed  to  be  the  usual  age  of 
these  old  burghers  for  slipping  off  this  mortal  coil  in 
this  quiet  sleepy  old  place  in  Southern  Belgium.  There 
are  many  new  graves  now  round  the  Renninghelst 
countryside,  and  they  are  for  men  who  have  died 
young,  suddenly,  and  in  the  springtime  of  their  days. 
The  interior  of  this  old  Flemish  chmch  is  lofty,  and 
has  little  in  the  way  of  adornment,  for  there  are  no 
millionaires  in  its  congregation  to  give  great  stained- 
glass  windows  or  carved  pulpits. 

On  my  fuvst  visit  to  the  chiurch  it  was  full  of  French 
soldiers,  some  sleeping  and  others  lolling  round  on  the 
straw   that  thickly  covered    the   stone   floor.    A  big 


OVER  THE  BELGIAN  FRONTIER        257 

group  were  crowded  round  a  charcoal  brazier  warming 
themselves  and  watching  the  progress  of  a  savoury 
stew.  The  French  soldiers  are  wonderful  cooks,  and 
the  stew  this  day  was  to  be  a  good  one,  for  the  jpiece 
de  resistance  was  a  fine  fat  hare  which  had  been  caught 
that  morning  near  the  front.  The  two  cooks  were 
exercising  great  care  to  make  the  stew  a  success,  and 
the  air  of  the  place  was  a  cheerful,  expectant  one. 

Some  days  after  this  visit  I  was  again  at  Renning- 
helst,  and  the  church  was  now  a  temporary  hospital. 
The  floor  was  still  covered  with  straw,  but  wounded 
men  were  lying  close  together  on  it.  The  charcoal 
brazier  was  still  there  and  giving  out  a  welcome  heat 
on  this  cold  wintry  day.  Ambulance  waggons  were 
in  the  street  next  the  church  full  of  wounded  soldiers, 
and  more  were  coming  up  the  road. 

French  army  surgeons  were  busy  amongst  the  red- 
breeched  men  in  the  church,  and  three  of  them  were 
engaged  round  an  improvised  operating  table  near  the 
altar,  where  a  man  deeply  under  chloroform  was  having 
his  jaw  wired  with  silver  wii'e  for  a  bad  fracture  from  a 
piece  of  shell. 

The  old  white-haired,  weary-looking  priest  of  the 
parish  was  leaning  over  a  dying  man  and  bending  his 
head  low  to  catch  the  last  faint  whispers.  Some  women 
of  the  village  were  carrying  round  cups  of  hot  broth 
to  the  men  propped  along  the  wall,  and  others  were 
hurrying  in  with  blankets  and  pillows. 

One  soldier  I  observed  to  be  very  blanched  and 
tossing  restlessly  on  his  straw.  Restlessness  is  always 
17 


258  A  SURGEON  IN  KHAKI 

an  important  sign  in  wounded  men,  and  on  going  up 
to  this  poor  devil  and  turning  down  liis  rough  blanket 
the  cause  of  the  trouble  was  apparent.  He  was  bleeding 
freely  through  a  bandaged  wound  of  the  leg.  The 
dressings  were  soaked  with  blood,  and  as  the  French 
surgeons  were  occupied  I  broke  a  professional  rule 
and  treated  this  patient  without  asking  his  doctor's 
permission.  The  bleeding  was  soon  controlled,  and 
the  threatened  death  from  haemorrhage  averted. 

As  I  was  completing  the  last  turns  of  the  bandage 
a  voice  murmured  over  my  shoulder,  "  Vive  Tentente 
cordiale.'"  The  speaker  was  the  chief  surgeon,  just 
released  from  his  work  on  the  operating  table.  He 
thanked  me  for  helping,  and  said  that  he  and  his  two 
assistants  had  been  up  all  night,  and  had  been  very 
busy.  Most  of  the  men  had  been  wounded  by  shrapnel. 
Shrapnel  makes  very  bad  wounds ;  it  rips,  tears,  and 
lacerates  the  tissues,  and  repair  is  often  impossible 
in  face  of  the  anatomical  devastation.  The  French 
were  having  a  great  deal  of  trouble  with  their  wounds, 
as  we  were  also.  All  the  wounds  became  septic.  There 
is  very  little  clean  surgery  in  this  war.  The  wounds 
rarely  heal  by  first  intention,  and  a  fractm-ed,  splintered 
bone  meant  months  of  rest  and  painful  dressings  in 
hospital  and  a  tardy  convalescence. 

The  fighting  all  along  this  front  had  been  extra- 
ordinarily severe.  The  French  hospitals  and  the  French 
medical  stafi  were  taxed  to  the  utmost.  Every  avail- 
able fighting  man  was  in  the  trenches  or  waiting  as 
supports.    The  German  hammer  was  making  mighty 


OVEE  THE  BELGIAN  FRONTIER        259 

swings  on  the  Allied  anvil,  and  nowhere  were  the  blows  so 
heavy  and  so  long  sustained  as  on  that  famous  Ypres 
salient.  It  was  bent  and  dented,  but  not  broken. 
The  character  of  the  fighting  can  be  grasped  from 
two  incidents.  One  famous  infantry  regiment  left 
England  at  full  strength.  All  of  its  original  officers 
were  killed,  wounded,  or  missing.  Of  the  second  lot 
of  officers,  all  were  killed,  wounded,  or  missing.  Its 
third  supply  of  officers  were  now  grimly  up  against 
the  same  chain  of  events. 

One  of  the  first  British  Divisions  left  England  with 
12,000  men  and  400  officers.  Wlien  it  was  withdrawn 
from  the  front  to  rest  and  refit,  it  could  only  muster 
2336  men  and  44  officers  ! 

A  famous  French  regiment  with  a  long  roll  of  battle 
honours  went  into  action  one  frosty  morning  near 
Reims.  It  went  forward  a  gleaming  column  of  more 
than  a  thousand  bayonets.  Two  days  afterwards 
forty-nine  men,  led  by  an  old  bearded  sergeant,  marched 
back.  These  were  all  that  were  left.  The  sergeant  had 
a  bloody  bandage  across  his  forehead — ^he  had  lost  an 
eye — but  the  French  Brigadier-General  embraced  and 
kissed  him  on  the  cheek.  The  French  officers  standing 
near  stood  rigidly  at  the  salute,  and  tears  were  running 
down  their  cheeks. 

The  losses  on  our  side  were  heavy  indeed,  but  on  the 
German  side  I  am  glad  to  know  that  they  were  colossal. 
The  annihilation  of  German  battalions  and  brigades 
is  an  argmnent  that  the  Germans  fully  understand, 
and  the  only  thing  that  will  convince  the  German  that 


260  A  SUEGEON  IN  KHAKI 

the  game  is  up  is  heavy  and  continuous  loss  of  fighting 
men  and  difficulty  in  filling  their  ranks.  This  sounds 
very  brutal,  but  we  are  Hving  in  a  hard  age. 

I  was  much  struck  by  the  splendid  way  the  women 
of  this  small  Belgian  town  ralhed  round  to  help  the 
womided.  We  found  the  same  thing  in  France;  no 
trouble  was  too  great,  and  all  was  done  so  cheerfully 
and  sympathetically.  This  is  the  "  women's  day  "  in 
France.  One  cannot  help  admiring  their  courage  and 
abiUty  in  France's  hom^  of  trial.  Husbands,  sons, 
brothers,  fathers — all  are  on  the  frontier,  and  the  women 
carry  on  the  business  of  France.  They  make  the  most 
stupendous  sacrifices  and  exhibit  a  subhme  patience. 
None  are  so  joyful  as  the  women  when  a  French  victory 
is  announced,  and  none  so  pitiful  as  they  when  the 
wounded,  the  corollary  to  every  victory,  arrive  at 
the  towns  and  villages. 

This  war,  which  the  German  has  carried  on  with  an 
animal  ferocity  and  a  degenerate  lust  unequalled  in 
history,  has  demonstrated  to  the  world  the  unfaltering 
nobility  of  character  of  the  French  woman,  and  that 
her  fervent  soul  can  rise  serene  and  cool  in  the  midst 
of  the  most  appalling  troubles. 

When  our  troops  landed  at  Le  Havre  in  August,  it 
was  noticed  at  once  what  a  big  part  the  women  were 
taking  in  the  business  life  of  the  place.  There  were 
women  conductors  on  the  trams,  women  in  the 
tobacconist  shops,  women  in  the  cafes  as  attendants, 
in  the  streets  selling  newspapers,  and  in  all  the  big 
magasins. 


I 


OVER  THE  BELGIAN  FRONTIER         261 

In  Rouen,  women  conducted  coal  and  timber  yards, 
vegetable  and  produce  businesses,  bakeries,  butcheries, 
fishmongeries,  grocers'  and  ironmongers'  stores.  Women 
drove  carts  and  waggons,  acted  as  tally  clerks  on 
wharves,  did  everything,  in  fact — and  did  it  all  soberly, 
quietly,  and  well.  They  were  always  tidy,  smart,  and 
cheerful,  and  did  not  stop  work  at  eleven  o'clock  for 
a  glass  of  beer,  or  spend  many  quarters  of  hours  filling 
and  lighting  pipes  of  tobacco. 

One  woman  I  know  —  a  rosy-cheeked,  blue-eyed 
Norman  dame — did  the  catering  for  a  large  officers' 
mess  in  one  of  the  camps  at  Rouen.  At  5  a.m.  she  was 
at  the  mess  tent  with  her  pony-cart  laden  with  wine, 
vegetables,  preserves,  and  fruit.  I  have  passed  her 
shop  at  nine  o'clock  at  night  and  have  seen  her  then 
busily  selling  dried  fish,  pickles,  and  vinegar  to  her 
customers.  She  told  me  that  she  was  too  busy  to  sleep. 
This  was  in  1915,  and  she  had  been  running  the  business 
with  no  other  help  than  that  of  two  small  daughters 
since  July  1914. 

Her  husband  was  on  the  Argonne  front,  and  she  was 
keeping  the  flag  flying  till  his  return.  Incidentally, 
she  was  making  money.  Catering  for  an  officers'  mess 
is  fairly  lucrative. 

On  the  march  from  the  Marne  to  the  Aisne,  and  on 
the  Aisne  itself,  women  were  to  be  seen  doing  ordinary 
farm  work — building  stacks,  carting  in  the  wheat, 
driving  waggon-loads  of  hay  and  peas,  milking  the  cows, 
making  cider  and  butter,  tilling  the  soil, — and  tending 
the  children  into  the  bargain. 


262  A  SURGEON  IN  KHAKI 

The  most  amazing  thing  of  all  was  to  see  women 
working  in  the  fields  behind  our  batteries  only  a  mile 
away. 

At  Venizel,  on  the  Aisne  bank,  our  Engineers  were 
throwing  a  pontoon  bridge  across  the  river  under  a 
heavy  shrapnel  fire.  Shells  were  bursting  up  and 
down  the  river's  bank  and  on  the  waters  of  the  river, 
yet  about  a  quarter  of  a  mile  behind  three  women  were 
busily  engaged  cutting  turnips  for  the  cows. 

On  the  march  from  the  Aisne  to  La  Bassee,  our 
Field  Ambulance  bivouacked  at  the  Chateau  of  Long- 

pont.     The  Comte  and  Comtesse  de  M were  in 

residence  at  the  chateau,  and  we  were  told  by  the 
Comtesse  that  General  von  KJuck,  commanding  the 
right  wing  of  the  invading  army,  had  in  August  stopped 
for  a  day  and  a  night  at  the  chateau  with  his  etat- 
major.  We  asked  how  Von  Kluck  had  behaved,  and 
the  Comtesse  said  that  he  had  been  tres  agreahle. 
When  he  arrived,  she  interviewed  him  and  begged  him 
to  respect  the  old  chateau  and  its  old  abbey,  the 
pictures  and  the  tapestries.  The  General  promised 
that  he  would  do  so,  and  that  he  would  give  orders 
that  the  villagers  in  the  hamlet  near  the  chateau  gates 
were  not  to  be  molested.  It  was  the  apple  season,  and 
the  apple  trees  of  Longpont  were  laden  with  delicious 
fruit.  Von  Kluck  "  asked  permission  "  of  the  Com- 
tesse for  his  soldiers  to  take  some  apples  off  the  trees. 
This  the  Comtesse  graciously  permitted,  and  the  dusty 
German  soldiery  helped  themselves  to  the  apples  and 
did  not  break  a  branch  off  a  single  tree. 


OVER  THE  BELGIAN  FRONTIER         263 

The  Comtesse  provided  new  eggs  and  butter  and 
bread  for  the  General's  breakfast,  and  he  invited  her 
to  honour  the  meal  with  her  presence.  But  the  Com- 
tesse sent  a  note  that  she  would  not  break  bread  with 
her  country's  enemy.  This  was  one  of  the  few 
chateaux  and  one  of  the  few  villages  that  the  German 
Saligoth  did  not  destroy  or  outrage  before  leaving. 

Some  German  Generals  approved  of  outrages  and 
atrocities,  to  wit,  Rupprecht  of  Bavaria.  Some  dis- 
approved, and  Von  Kluck,  it  is  said,  was  one  of  these — 
but  I  "  hae  ma  doots." 

This  leads  to  one  of  the  blackest  pictures  of  this 
war — a  picture  grim  and  loathsome.  It  is  a  subject 
which  the  women  of  France  will  discuss  freely  and 
openly  and  with  a  concentrated  bitterness  that  one 
can  readily  understand.  I  have  spoken  to  many 
educated  French  women  on  this  subject,  and  have  heard 
many  curious  and  amazing  tales  and  incidents.  The 
subject  is  that  of  the  women  who  have  been  ravished 
and  outraged  by  the  German  soldiery. 

Many  of  these  victims,  married  women  and  young 
girls,  are  to-day  pregnant  to  German  fathers,  and  the 
burning  question  with  the  women  of  France  is  how 
best  to  help  their  unfortunate  sisters,  and  what  is  to 
be  done  for  the  offspring. 

In  the  French  Chamber  of  Deputies  the  subject  has 
been  debated  with  equal  freedom  and  openness.  Lead- 
ing French  newspapers  too,  such  as  the  Figaro,  Le 
Temps,  Echo  de  Paris,  and  others,  have  envisaged  the 
position  in  powerful  and  appealing  articles. 


264  A  SURGEON  IN  KHAKI 

One  journal  advocated  that  in  the  exceptional 
circumstances  it  was  perfectly  justifiable  to  carry  out 
abortion  and  interrupt  the  period  of  gestation.  Opinions 
were  sought  from  leading  French  physicians  and  from 
the  Academy  of  Medicine.  These  unhesitatingly  con- 
demned such  a  course,  pointing  out  that  the  mission  of 
the  medical  profession  was  to  save  life ;  and  also  that 
the  induction  of  premature  labour  was  at  all  times  a 
dangerous  and  risky  operation  to  the  mother,  and  in 
certain  circumstances  would  be  fatal. 

The  Catholic  Church  in  France  spoke  strongly  and 
certainly  in  the  same  direction,  and  condemned  as 
utterly  wrong  and  sinful  any  measure  that  had  for  its 
object  the  death  of  the  unborn  child. 

The  women  of  France,  however,  do  not  share  these 
latter  views. 

Arrangements  have  now  been  completed  for  the 
reception  of  these  pitiful  expectant  mothers  into  certain 
maternity  homes,  where  they  will  be  attended  by  skilled 
doctors  and  nurses  at  the  State  expense.  After  birth 
the  child  is  to  be  brought  up  by  the  State  at  some 
place  undeclared.  The  mother  will  not  see  the  child 
at  any  time,  and  will  know  nothing  of  its  future. 

The  clergy  all  over  Northern  France  are  attending 
to  this  matter,  and  everything  will  be  done  as  secretly 
as  possible  in  the  unusual  circumstances. 

No  wonder  that  the  French  woman  speaks  of  the 
German  soldier  as  a  loathly  thing. 


i 


CHAPTER   XIX. 

WE  LEAVE  BELGIUM. 

At  the  end  of  November  our  ambulance  was  ordered 
to  St.  Jans  Capelle.  We  were  not  sorry  to  leave  our 
house,  with  its  evil  pond  and  manure  heap,  and  the 
voice  of  Madame. 

Madame,  by  the  way,  was  very  amiable  when  we 
told  her  that  we  were  to  leave.  She  did  not  say  that 
she  was  sorry,  but  she  no  longer  screeched  at  our  cooks 
or  railed  at  our  men  for  eating  her  straw.  Just  as  our 
ambulance  was  about  to  move  off,  and  Madame  stood 
at  the  door  with  the  first  approach  to  a  frosty  smile 
that  w^e  had  ever  seen  on  her  face,  a  French  sergeant 
and  ten  men  of  a  balloon  section  arrived.  The  sergeant 
had  a  lump  of  chalk  in  his  hand  and  scrawled  on  the 
door,  "  Ballon.  3  sous  OfHciers.  Hommes  x.*'  He 
brusquely  informed  Madame  that  the  quarters  just 
vacated  by  us  were  to  be  at  once  taken  by  his  balloon 
section.  Madame  raged  and  raved,  but  the  sergeant 
was  imperturbable,  and  suddenly  quietened  Madame 
by  saying  that  if  she  objected  very  much  he  would 
begin  to  think  that  she  was  a  German  spy.  The  sergeant 
told  us  that  as  a  matter  of  fact  they  were  not  satisfied 
about  Madame's  husband's  patriotism.     We  knew  that 


266  A  SURGEON  IN  KHAKI 

Madame  and  her  sulky  husband  would  now  have  a 
much  worse  time  than  when  we  occupied  the  house, 
for  at  least  we  tried  to  give  little  trouble,  and  lavishly 
paid  for  any  vegetables,  milk,  or  food  that  we  got  from 
the  farmer.  The  French  insist  on  the  "  articles  of  war," 
and  when  they  occupy  a  house  they  really  do  occupy 
it  and  make  themselves  very  much  at  home. 

This  mention  of  Madame's  husband  being  of  doubtful 
honesty,  reminded  us  of  a  curious  incident  that  occurred 
early  in  our  stay  at  this  place.  There  was  another 
farm  close  to  the  one  we  occupied,  and  this  farm  was 
owned  by  a  man  who,  we  were  told,  was  a  cousin  of 
"  Monsieur  our  farmer."  At  this  house  a  man  was 
stopping  who  said  that  he  was  a  refugee  from  Ypres. 
He  told  us  that  he  was  a  baker  from  Boston,  United 
States  of  America,  and  that  he  and  his  wife,  who  were 
Belgians,  had  been  visiting  their  native  country  when 
war  broke  out.  He  said  that  his  wife  and  two  children 
were  in  Brussels  when  the  Germans  occupied  the  city, 
and  that  he  himself  was  stopping  with  a  friend  in 
Ypres  when  the  Germans  first  bombarded  it ;  he  then 
left  Ypres  and  came  to  stop  at  this  farmer's  house. 
This  man  used  to  walk  every  day  along  a  road  which 
passed  behind  some  French  batteries  of  75  mm.,  but  one 
day  he  did  not  come  back.  We  asked  his  farmer  friend 
what  had  become  of  him,  and  he  said  that  he  had  left 
to  go  to  America.  We  thought  the  circumstance  odd 
at  the  time,  and  when  our  sergeant  told  us  about 
Madame's  husband  being  under  suspicion  we  asked 
him  if  he  knew  anything  about  this  other  man,  the 


WE  LEAVE  BELGIUM  267 

Boston  baker.  He  said  that  he  did,  for  he  had  seen 
the  fellow  arrested  and  sent  back  to  be  tried  for  spying. 
That  perhaps  explained  why  Madame  did  not  like  us, 
and  why  her  vituperation  and  objections  were  suddenly 
silenced  when  the  French  balloon  sergeant  talked  about 
German  spies. 

After  leaving  the  inhospitable  cottage-headquarters, 
our  ambulance  had  a  long  day's  trek  over  the  Belgian 
frontier  to  St.  Jans  Capelle.  This  place  was  close  to 
Bailleul.  We  put  our  men  into  billets  near  at  hand 
and  got  quarters  for  ourselves  in  the  Convent,  where 
the  sisters  gave  us  a  big  dormitory  full  of  clean  white 
beds  with  blankets  and  sheets.  This  was  indeed  luxury 
after  all  our  roughing  times  from  the  Marne  till  now. 
We  were  always  perfectly  willing  to  undergo  incon- 
venience and  hardships,  but  none  of  us  ever  missed  an 
opportunity  of  avaiHng  himself  of  the  luxuries  and 
amenities  of  civilisation  whenever  they  presented 
themselves.  We  had  the  fine  front  room  of  the  Convent 
for  a  dining-  and  sitting-room,  and,  greatest  boon  of  all, 
a  fire  to  sit  round.  The  cold  was  intense  at  this  time, 
and  the  whole  country  was  frozen  hard  in  snow  and  ice. 
This  was  the  period  when  frostbite  was  so  terrible  to 
our  men  in  the  trenches,  and  the  Clearing  Hospitals  and 
Ambulance  Stations  were  so  busy  treating  the  frozen  men. 

It  was  found  necessary  to  relieve  frequently  the 
freezing  soldiers  in  the  advanced  trenches,  and  every 
three  days  they  were  allowed  out  from  the  terrible  mud 
ditches,  with  death  on  the  parapet  and  frostbite  at  the 
bottom. 


268  A  SURGEON  IN  KHAKI 

Braziers   of   burning   charcoal   were   put   into  the 
trenches,  but  were  found  to  be  ineffective  and  harmful 
to  the  feet.     The  people  of  England  did  magnificent 
work  in  sending  out  gum  boots,  skin  overcoats,  and 
protectives  of  all  sort,  but  in  spite  of  all  that  was  done 
the  frostbite  incapacitated  many  men.    The  recoveries 
were  always  slow,  and  could  not  be  effected  at  the 
front,  so  all  these  limping  men  were  sent  back  to  England 
for   rest   and   change.    Many    methods   of    treatment 
were  tried  for  the  frostbite,  but  time  alone  seemed  to 
be  the  chief  curative  factor.     In  some  cases  the  feet  were 
swollen,  and  small  bloody  exudates  could  be  seen  under 
the  big  toe  and  the  outer  side  of  the  foot  where  the 
boot  pressed.     Sometimes  the   skin  was   broken  and 
ulcers  formed  at  the  site.     In  other  cases  toes  became 
completely  gangrenous  or  dead.     The  feet  were  rubbed 
and  massaged  with  various  oils  and  swathed  in  cotton 
wool,  but  wrapping  in  wool  aggravated  the  suffering, 
and  the  men  felt  much  more  relief  when  the  feet  were 
left  exposed.     The  worst  time  for  the  cold-feet  men  was 
from  one  o'clock  to  three  in  the  morning.     They  would 
often  go  off  to  sleep  peacefully,  but  would  wake  up  at 
these  hours  suffering  excruciating  pain  in  their  feet  and 
calves  and  up  the  spine.    Nothing  would  relieve  this 
pain    but    hypodermic    injections    of    morphia.     One 
officer  described  his  state  to  me,  and  said  that  he  had 
been  standing  in  a  trench  in  mud  over  his  boot-tops. 
At  first  his  feet  felt  very  cold,  and  he  tried  to  warm 
them  by  stamping,  but  this  method  of  exercise  was 
too  sloppy.    Then  sensation  seemed  to  go  and  he  felt 


^"-  ^      ■   liiiii 


CiOIM;    TOWAKHS    the    trenches    at    \|'KKS. 


French  soldiers  c.oinc.  to  the  tkknches. 


WE  LEAVE  BELGIUM  269 

quite  comfortable,  because  although  his  feet  felt  very 
heavy  they  did  not  feel  cold,  only  dead.  On  the  fifth 
day  he  could  hardly  walk  and  had  to  be  helped  out  of 
the  trenches.  He  was  unable  to  walk  to  the  ambulance, 
a  short  way  back,  and  the  feet  were  found  to  be  so 
swollen  in  hospital  that  the  boots  had  to  be  cut  off. 
Then  the  worst  time  of  all  came  on,  for  as  the  circula- 
tion gradually  retm'ned  he  suffered  diabolical  pain  in 
his  feet  and  calves,  and  this  pain  was  always  worst  in 
the  early  mornings.  Eight  weeks  after  having  been 
lifted  out  of  the  trench  he  was  still  limping  about  with 
two  sticks,  and  was  making  a  normal  but  very  slow 
recovery. 

This  ofi&cer  told  me  that  one  night  the  men  in  his 
trenches  were  ordered  out  to  make  a  bayonet  attack, 
but  half  of  them  were  in  such  a  condition  that  they 
could  not  crawl  out  of  the  trench.  Fortunately  the 
Germans  were  pushed  back  by  those  who  could,  other- 
wise the  poor  devils  left  behind  would  have  been 
captured  or  killed. 

The  Indians  round  the  Bethune  district  suffered 
very  severely  from  the  frostbite,  and  these  poor  men 
deserved  our  greatest  sympathy  during  this  period, 
trying  and  terrible  enough  to  men  reared  in  a  fairly 
rigorous  climate  like  that  of  England  or  Scotland. 
The  misery  of  the  life  to  men  who  had  never  lived  out 
of  tropical  India  was  enough  to  wear  down  any  but  the 
stoutest  hearts.  History  will  give  due  credit  and 
praise  to  these  Indians,  that  they  rose  superior  to  their 
environment    and    soon    proved   what    sterling    good 


270  A  SURGEON  IN  KHAKI 

soldiers   they   are.     I    visited   at   an   Indian   Clearing 

Hospital  the   first   lot   of  casualties  from  the   M 

Division.  This  Clearing  Hospital  took  over  the  ificole 
Jules  Ferry  at  Bethune,  and  occupied  it  for  a  few  weeks 
after  our  Clearing  Hospital  had  vacated  it.  The 
doctors  belonged  to  the  Indian  Medical  Service,  and 
the  native  Indian  doctors  belonging  to  the  subordinate 
medical  service  acted  under  the  white  doctors.  Some 
temporary  lieutenants  of  the  Royal  Ajmy  Medical 
Corps  were  also  on  the  staff. 

The  dusky  warriors  were  arriving  in  scores,  brought 
in  on  motor  ambulances,  and  very  woeful  they  looked, 
covered  with  mud  and  bloody  bandages.  They  had 
not  been  long  at  the  front,  and  their  first  experience 
of  modern  war  was  a  very  desperate  ordeal. 

The  night  was  dark  and  gloomy  and  a  heavy  rain 
was  soaking  the  countryside.  The  mud-splashed  cars 
dashed  into  the  dripping  courtyard,  fitfully  lit  up  by 
the  sombre  gleams  of  smoky  lanterns  tied  to  posts. 
Round  about  were  the  dark-faced  bearers  ready  to 
help  out  the  wounded.  Those  who  could  walk  got 
out  of  the  ambulances  themselves  and  the  stretcher 
cases  were  taken  out  by  the  bearers.  The  scene  on 
this  night  impressed  one  with  the  far-reaching  character 
of  this  war,  for  here  were  men  from  the  central  plains 
of  India,  the  far-off  frontiers  and  the  slopes  of  the 
Himalayas,  gathered  together  in  a  muddy,  marshy 
region  of  France,  and  wounded  in  trying  to  hold  a  line 
of  ditches  against  the  most  determined  and  scientific 
fighting  men  of  Europe. 


WE  LEAVE  BELGIUM  271 

"  Rulers  alike  and  subject,  splendid  the  loU-call  rings, 
Rajahs  and  Maharajahs,  Kings  and  the  sons  of  Kings, 
From  the  land  where  the  skies  are  molten 

And  the  suns  strike  down  and  parch. 
Out  of  the  East  they  are  marching. 

Into  the  West  they  march." 

One  swarthy  Sikh  with  a  fine  beard  was  asked 
what  he  thought  of  the  war. 

"  Sahib,  it  is  a  very  good  war.  It  is  a  man's  war. 
The  old  men,  the  women,  and  the  children  are  in  the 
villages.  The  warriors  are  out  fighting.  It  is  very 
good."  This  optimist  had  got  through  with  a  slight 
wound  of  the  right  hand,  and  perhaps  that  accounted 
for  his  cheery  outlook.  Most  of  the  wounded  on  that 
night  looked  as  if  they  would  have  been  better  pleased 
to  be  with  "the  old  men,  the  women,  and  the  children 
in  the  villages." 

There  is  no  doubt  that  the  Indians  are  pleased  to  be 
fighting  alongside  us  in  this  "  good  war,"  but  they 
have  a  respect  for  the  German  because  he  is  a  fierce 
fighter,  and  perhaps  also  because  of  his  ruthlessness, 
an  attitude  which  appeals  to  the  Oriental  mind. 

The  Gurkha  is  a  funny  little  man  and  a  swash- 
buckler. His  small  sturdy  frame,  his  slanting,  watch- 
ful eyes  with  the  glint  of  the  devil  in  them,  his  bandolier, 
rifle,  and  deadly  kukri,  with  its  broad  razor-edged 
blade,  make  up  a  picture  of  force  and  fighting  cunning. 

Plaster  this  man  with  thick  mud,  put  a  bloody 
bandage  round  his  head,  and  place  him  in  a  dimly  lit 
corner  of  a  dripping  court  on  a  dark,  rainy  night,  then 
indeed  he  looks  a  breathing  symbol  of   murder   and 


272  A  SURGEON  IN  KHAKI 

imminent  destruction.  When  the  Gurkha  is  out  "  on 
the  job  "  at  night,  prowling  far  from  his  trenches  and 
within  the  enemy  lines,  with  no  weapon  but  his  broad, 
sharp  knife  and  with  a  mind  intent  on  slaying,  he  is  a 
formidable  and  fearsome  adversary. 

At  first  our  Indian  troops  found  it  difficult  to 
accustom  themselves  to  the  novel  form  of  war  in  wet, 
cold  trenches,  a  bad  climate,  and  with  every  surrounding 
strange  and  inhospitable.  The  loss  of  their  British 
officers  and  native  non-commissioned  officers  was  at 
first  very  heavy,  and  this  discouraged  the  men,  who 
look  so  much  to  their  officers  who  know  their  language 
and  understand  them.  But  these  brave  fellows  soon 
"  found  themselves,"  and  have  since  those  dark  October 
days  proved  again  and  again  that  when  the  call  comes 
they  can  be  relied  upon  to  fight  with  as  much  deter- 
mination as  ever  they  have  done  in  the  past.  An 
experienced  British  officer  of  a  native  regiment  told 
me  that  what  the  Indians  missed  very  much  in  France 
was  opium.  He  said  that  the  Indian  had  always  been 
accustomed  to  his  opium  in  India,  that  he  did  not  take 
much,  but  really  was  the  better  for  a  little.  He  took 
it  in  small  quantity  as  a  soporific  stimulant,  just  as 
our  grandfathers  took  snuff,  and  he  assured  me  that 
when  the  Indians  had  to  meet  the  hellish  conditions  of 
modern  war  at  the  front  last  winter  a  little  opium 
to  each  man  would  have  meant  a  great  deal.  In  this 
I  cordially  agree  with  him,  for  the  medicinal  and 
stimulant  effects  of  small  doses  of  opium  are  undoubted. 

The  question  of  feeding  our  Indian  soldiers  was  a 


WE  LEAVE  BELGIUM  273 

difficult  one,  and  required  very  careful  handling.  An 
old  Sikh  was  wounded  near  Bethune  and  was  taken  to 
the  British  Clearing  Hospital.  He  refused  to  take 
an3rthing  but  biscuits  and  water.  Fortunately  we 
were  able  to  remove  the  old  ritualist  to  the  native 
Clearing  Hospital,  otherwise  we  would  have  been  at  an 
impasse. 

Amongst  both  Hindoos  and  Mohammedans  the 
caste  prejudices  and  ritualistic  ceremonies  must  be 
remembered  and  observed  in  the  providing  and  killing 
of  animals  for  consumption.  The  French  also  have 
native  troops  with  them  and  have  the  same  difficulties 
to  overcome,  and  this  helps  us  considerably  in  arranging 
a  joint  commissariat  scheme.  A  Sikh  soldier  will  not 
eat  a  sheep  killed  in  the  Mohammedan  method  by  cutting 
its  throat,  and  the  Mohammedan  soldier  will  not  eat  a 
sheep  killed  in  the  Sikh  method  by  a  slashing  stroke 
on  the  back  of  the  neck.  So  there  you  are.  These 
things  do  not  seem  to  be  very  important,  but  they  are 
important  all  the  same.  Ask  the  Jew  who  refuses  the 
unclean  pork,  and  the  good  Churchman  who  refuses 
meat  on  Fridays. 

The   following   story,  which  I  heard  at  the  front, 

illustrates  the  accommodating  natm-e  of  the  Gurkha. 

\\Tien  his  regiments  were  embarking  on  the  transports 

at  an  Indian  port,  the  point  arose  whether  he  would 

eat  frozen  mutton.     The  British  officers  agreed  to  let 

the  matter  be  solved  by  the  men.     So  they  called  up  the 

Subadar,  who,  after  a  little  wrinkling  of  the  eyebrow, 

said,  "  I  think,  Sahib,  the  regiment  will  be  willing  to 
i8 


274  A  SURGEON  IN  KHAKI 

eat  the  iced  sheep  provided   one  of  them   is  always 
present  to  see  the  animal  frozen  to  death." 

In  Rouen  there  is  an  encampment  for  goats  for  the 
Indians,  and  we  were  told  that  these  goats  were  good 
mountain  fellows  from  the  Pyrenees.  Four  Indians, 
under  the  charge  of  an  old,  venerable,  long-bearded 
native,  used  to  drive  them  from  their  encamp- 
ment to  the  Indian  convalescent  depot  about  two  miles 
outside  the  city. 

The  goats,  in  spite  of  the  shouting  and  rushing 
about  of  the  drivers,  would  not  keep  their  ranks  and 
dress  by  the  right  in  marching  through  Normandy's 
capital  city.  The  delight  of  the  French  people,  who 
always  tm^ned  up  in  crowds  to  see  the  goats  march  past, 
passed  all  bounds  when  one  would  make  a  wild  dash 
up  a  side  street,  hotly  pursued  by  an  irate  turbaned 
Indian.  Another  source  of  great  joy  was  to  see  the 
goats  march  slowly  along  the  train  line  and  hold  up  the 
train  traffic. 

The  Indians  were  always  of  absorbing  interest  to 
the  French,  and  crowds  of  men  and  women  would  walk 
on  a  fine  afternoon  from  the  city  to  the  Indian  depot 
camp  for  convalescents  to  see  our  brown-faced  fighting 
men. 

On  one  winter  day  in  Rouen,  just  after  a  heavy  fall 
of  snow,  a  company  of  French  soldiers  under  a  non- 
commissioned officer  was  marching  past  the  Indian 
encampment.  The  Indians  lined  up  the  fence  along- 
side the  road  and  bombarded  the  French  with  a 
rapid  fire  of  snowballs.     The  French  looked  surprised, 


WE  LEAVE  BELGIUM  275 

and,  forgetting  discipline  but  still  keeping  their  ranks, 
poured  a  heavy  fusillade  of  snowballs  on  the  men  of 
India.  The  incident  is  illustrative  of  the  good  feeling 
that  exists  between  the  French  and  their  Indian  allies. 
The  Abbe  Bouchon  d'Homme  of  our  hospital  at 
Bethune  told  me  with  great  glee  one  morning  that  the 
Mayor  of  the  town  had  had  a  "  poser  "  put  to  him  by 
the  Indians.  One  of  these  had  just  died  from  wounds, 
and  he  had  evidently  been  a  fii'e-worshipper.  The  dead 
man's  conn:ades  asked  the  Mayor  of  Bethune  to  provide 
them  with  timber,  as  they  wished  to  burn  the  deceased 
in  the  cemetery  of  the  city.  The  Mayor  was  staggered 
at  the  request,  and  although  he  had,  so  the  Abbe  said, 
some  curiosity  to  see  the  ceremony  of  fire  carried  out, 
he  had  to  "  turn  down  "  the  proposition.  So  the  man 
was  buried  in  the  usual  way. 

Good-bye  to  the  Front. 

The  Army  Headquarters,  now  that  om*  line  had 
been  firmly  established  and  locked  fixmly  on  our  right 
with  the  French  and  on  our  left  with  the  Belgians  and 
French,  decided  to  allow  a  short  leave,  at  intervals,  and 
in  rotation,  to  officers  and  as  many  men  as  possible. 
The  leave  was  specially  designed  for  those  who  had 
been  through  the  retreat,  the  Marne,  and  the  Aisne. 
New  troops  were  arriving  at  the  front  and  gradually 
taking  the  place  of  the  veterans  temporarily  retii'ed  to 
recuperate. 

The  5th  Division  had  been  amongst  the  hard  knocks 
fi'om  the  beginning  and  we  got  off  early. 


276  A  SUEGEON  IN  KHAKI 

I  left  the  front  by  a  motor  biis,  which  conveyed  a 
group  of  seven  officers  from  Bailleul  to  Boulogne, 
and  from  thence  we  reached  England  by  the  ferry 
steamer. 

It  felt  uncanny  to  be  away  from  the  sound  of  the 
guns.  Ever  since  August  oiu-  lives  had  been  punctu- 
ated with  incessant  gun-iire ;  we  had  roused  each 
morning  to  the  sound  of  heavy  artiUery,  we  had  gone 
to  sleep  with  cannonades  for  a  lullaby,  and  during 
the  long  day  had  listened  to  the  Devil's  Orchestra 
of  lyddite,  melinite,  shrapnel,  and  rifle  fire  ;  and  now 
away  from  it  all  we  seemed  to  live  in  a  curiously  still 
and  silent  world. 

London  was  a  very  inviting  place  to  return  to. 
The  hot  bath,  the  good  bed,  the  morning  newspaper  at 
breakfast  had  never  been  so  much  appreciated  before. 
The  rough  knocking  about  and  the  strain  had  left  its 
effects  on  the  health  of  many  of  us,  and  these  four  days' 
rest  and  recuperation,  mental  and  physical,  were  a 
godsend. 

At  the  end  of  the  holiday  I  was  appointed  Surgical 
Specialist  to  a  Base  Hospital  in  Eouen,  and  for  a  time 
my  lines  were  cast  in  quieter  waters.  But  the  allure- 
ment of  the  front — the  call  of  the  wild  with  its 
excitements  and  uncertainties  —  lasted  for  some  time 
longer.  It  is  a  curious  fact,  but  true,  that  the  men  at 
the  front  would  like  to  get  to  the  Base,  and  when  they 
get  there  they  want  to  retmn  to  the  front.  "  Those 
behind  say  forward,  and  those  in  fi'ont  say  back." 

The  memories  of  days  spent  at  the  front  can  never 


WE  LEAVE  BELGIUM  277 

be  quite  forgotten.  Time  may  blmit  the  clearness  of 
outline  of  some  of  the  incidents  in  a  hazy  mist,  but 
there  are  others  that  will  stand  out  clear  and  undimmed 
to  the  last. 

The  surgeon  sees  the  very  seamy  side  of  war.  He 
comes  close  to  the  men  stricken  down  in  the  field, 
helpless  and  bleeding  and  in  pain.  He  stands  by  them 
in  their  dark  hours  in  hospital  and  by  their  bedsides 
when  they  die. 

^Vhile  the  world  is  hearing  the  earthquake  voice 
of  Victory,  he  is  perhaps  kneehng  on  the  straw  easing 
the  path  to  death  of  a  dying  man,  one  of  the  victors 
in  the  fight,  or  perhaps  operating  in  a  mean  cottage, 
smTounded  by  wounded  men  waiting  their  turn  on  the 
table. 

The  gallant  charge,  the  brave  defence,  the  storming 
of  the  enemy's  position  are  heralded  in  dispatches 
and  in  song  and  story,  but  translated  into  the  note- 
book of  the  "  Surgeon  in  Khaki  "  they  represent  many 
dead,  many  wounded,  much  crippling  and  mutilation, 
tears,  distress,  and  broken  hearts. 

I  have  seen  brave  men  die  the  death  in  battle — 
changed  in  a  second  of  time  from  forceful,  vital,  volcanic 
energy  to  still,  inanimate  rest.  I  have  seen  mortally 
wounded  men  pass  uncomplainingly  and  composedly 
to  the  valley  of  the  shadow,  and  I  have  seen  faces  become 
anxious  and  troubled  at  the  thought  of  those  dear  and 
loving  ones  left  behind  and  of  the  aching  hearts  and 
tears. 

I  have  written  letters  of  farewell  fi-om  dying  men 


278  A  SUEGEON  IN  KHAKI 

and  officers  to  wives  and  sweethearts  and  children,  and 
have  felt  the  horror  and  misery  of  it  all.  It  is  a  sad 
and  mournful  sight  to  see  brave  young  men  die. 

Yet,  though  the  life  of  the  "  Surgeon  in  Khaki "'  is 
amidst  this  aftermath  of  battle,  he  has  the  infinite 
satisfaction  of  knowing  that  he  can,  and  does,  hold  out 
a  hand  of  help  to  the  hurt  and  maimed  soldier  crawUng 
out  of  the  welter  of  blood  and  destruction,  and  that  he  is 
doing  the  work  of  the  Compassionate  and  Pitying  One. 

"Affliction's  sons  are  brothers  in  distress, 
A  brother  to  relieve  !     How  exquisite  the  Bliss." 

This  war  has  brought  out  many  faults  in  our 
national  life,  but  it  has  also  brought  out  many  shining 
virtues,  and  to  the  Faith  and  Hope  of  the  people  in  the 
prowess  of  the  soldiers,  we  must  add  the  Charity  shown 
by  the  people  of  this  Empire  to  our  sick  and  womided. 
By  subscriptions  to  ambulance  funds,  Eed  Cross  funds, 
and  hospitals,  and  by  doing  all  that  was  humanly 
possible  to  help  those  hurt  in  battle,  the  people  of  to- 
day have  made  a  name  that  posterity  will  honom-  and 
strive  in  vain  to  equal.  They  have  also  helped  the 
Belgian  and  Serbian  Red  Cross  movements  and  have 
shown  that 

"  Kindness  in  another's  trouble. 
Courage  in  your  own," 

which  is  always  so  admirable  a  trait. 

Our  fighting  men  are  magnificent,  and  the  hardihood 
and  patient  endurance  of  our  wounded  are  beyond  all 
praise.     I  have  seen  our  men  in  actual  fight,  I  have 


WE  LEAVE  BELGIUM  279 

watched  the  French  gimners  at  work  and  seen  the 
French  infantry  charge  with  the  bayonet  and  throw 
back  a  German  rush,  and  I  feel  a  complete  confidence 
of  the  ultimate  final  success  of  the  Allied  arms — for 
to  such  men  is  given  the  Victory. 


THE   END. 


* 


Pfinted  by 

MORRIBON  &  QiBB  LiXlTED 

Kdinburgh 


I 


UC  SOUTHERN  REGIONAL  LIBRARY  FACILITY 


A  A         001  422  824  i 


